Curious
by VixenVampirechick
Summary: Cheetara is curious and Tygra is more than willing to help her explore it. Though there is that old saying about curiosity... Set sometimes after New Alliances
1. Chapter 1

**CURIOUS**

It was only days ago the sun was an abrupt but welcome presence stepping out of the forest. Open fields and high tall grass had always been the kind of terrain she was most comfortable in, it was just another gift she smiled inwardly at, if she closed her eyes and took in a long, deep inhale she wouldn't just smell the soil, the sweet grain or the stream that lay just a quarter mile to the east, she'd breathe in the fading scents of all others that had passed here, lingering long after footsteps had faded.

"Which way is this stream again? I can't see!" WileyKit whined. She cursed her small stature in the long grasses, she couldn't see a thing and her neck was getting sore from craning it to pinpoint the two older cats.

A head of wild hair bobbed along next to the kitten until her brother had managed to make a large circle round Kit, her large green eyes seeing only the grass shift around her as he moved about.

"Probably not too much further," Cheetara responded taking leisurely but long steps ahead.

"We'd better hurry, looks like it'll be getting dark in a few hours," Tygra observes.

She'd almost forgotten he was behind her, he hadn't said much on their trudge through the grass and the only indication of his presence was the occasional crackle of dry grass under his feet. He was usually soundless and now he's nearly dragging, it was very hot and she'd learned quickly unlike her Tygra didn't seem to tolerate the heat well.

He was a cat more adapted for snow and wind and rain, his denser coat working against him in the hot dry weather and she could tell he was a bit uncomfortable, almost sluggish as shade had been hard to come by all day.

He'd wanted to come along to search for water, needing to stretch his legs he said, though she's sure he just wants to be near her and she's more than okay with that.

He probably regrets it and Cheetara seeks some way to take his mind off of it.

"Don't tell me you're afraid of the dark?" the cleric teased.

A humid breeze stirs her hair and she tugs the errands strands back, Tygra's stomach does an odd but pleasant flop at the playful glint in the cheetah's eyes. "Of course not, just harder to keep track of those two in the dark out here."

From somewhere in the grass a few paces behind the two of them Kit and Kat had mostly vanished, if not for their long tails waving like a white flag.

"They'll be along they've never had a hard time following before especially with you here."

She knew she sounded dismissive, under normal circumstances in this dangerous world outside of Thundera she wouldn't dream of turning her back on two kittens their age. But WileyKat and WileyKit were not the average kittens.

"Especially with me here?"

She nods using her staff as a sort of walking stick as she trudges uphill. "They'd follow you anywhere; it's even hard to get away from them when you're around. You're a package deal."

Tygra grins at her, "jealous?"

Cheetara just bites back a smile refusing to feed his ego.

She is relieved to see the stream they'd trekked for visible in the distance. "Looks like you were right, water."

He shrugs, "figured with the animal tracks heading west and the lower valleys that direction we'd run into water eventually, didn't think it'd be this soon."

The edge of the stream is sandy and the terrain cool cloaked with the bank of evergreens, the water runs clear as a crystal and she drops to her knees to cup her hands and drink as does Tygra and they both sigh in relief for their parched lungs.

Tygra lifts his head noticing Cheetara's eyes upon him. He smiles fondly at her, "what?"

She shrugs, "nothing."

He only grunts with the tug of a smile both content in the peace and solitude of only the other.

The clamor of the two cubs breaks the peace of the two cats' moment as they thunder to the water's edge plunging their faces in.

It doesn't seem to be enough as the twins begin to wade in it till it's up to their shoulders.

"Finally water, thought we were gonna burn alive! All that walking!"

"Feels so perfect! It's soooo hot!" Kit chimes.

"We've only gone a few miles out from our camp; don't tell us you're winded from a short little walk?" Cheetara asks beginning to free her pack from her shoulders searching for her water skin.

"Short? It felt like a million years in this heat!"

Cheetara hands Tygra a now full waterskin and he takes it stuffing it into a pack. "Well come out of there, we'll need that water for drinking, baths and swims downstream in the still water," the tiger commands.

The kits grumble waddling out of the rushing water and Tygra hands Kit a full bottle and she greedily seizes it.

"Share with Kat, there's only so many," he reminds her.

Kit makes a face but doesn't protest.

Tygra is looking off into the trees, there's a hardness to his brow that she recognizes as the beginnings of his thinking face.

"What are you thinking?" Cheetara asks hoisting the bag to one shoulder.

"Going to be cooler here than the hillside, I think we should make camp here for the night no sense in a hot uncomfortable night in the hills. Plus we have a pretty large water source right here for bathing and drinking."

She agreed it was probably best, at least then the kits wouldn't keep them awake half the night complaining about the heat and everyone in general was less likely to be as surly with a good night's sleep before they journeyed on.

They'd have so little time alone, which had at first been heavenly stealing kisses under the stars and quiet conversation but in recent days her feelings were shifting, evolving to something else and there was churning within her, something deep and primal that was building. She can tell he's being careful with her and slow in their courtship and she's more than grateful and impressed with him understanding without her awkward explanation of this being wholly brand new for her. She'd never been touched before, never kissed and when he does she reminded of why she's always wanted this with him and her mind becomes a pleasant haze.

But she's having thoughts lately and feeling strange things, like she's raring to run in a race, blood roaring in her ears every time he's around her. An excitement that differs from the fuzzy warmth, it's…darker somehow and even though Tygra treats her with the same gentle reverence it niggles setting her nerves on edge.

She blames her newness at this whole thing and seeks mediation to center herself a few hours at a time when she can and Tygra seems to know she needs her space as he isn't seen much during that time.

She's glad more when they come together after some time apart even for routine things like water runs.

"We'll have to get back to Panthro and Lion-O and see what they think; I don't imagine either will be too happy about packing up or resetting camp."

"Like it or not its our best option if we're going to rest in these parts a few days, we all need it. Why don't you and the kits go back to camp let them figure out what we're doing, I'll catch up."

He watching the rush of the stream and she kneels to fill the last bottle. "And…where are you going?"

He seems to pause before answering, "Figured I'd scout the perimeter, check and see what food can be gathered, hunting or foraging is gonna be best around a water source. If I don't see you back when the sun starts to set I'll head back with what I find."

Tygra's words make all the sense in the world but it doesn't mean she likes them, she knows she's being silly to even be concerned as Tygra was more than capable of handling himself and that it would only be a few hours at best and he often hunted solo anyway.

"If we aren't back an hour before dark…" she starts.

Tygra finishes, "I'll head right back then."

She'll take it and the three cats head off with their packs of supplies.

Both kits immediately resume their grumbling about the heat and Cheetara is grateful for the background noise as they go along, she's just ahead of them taking long strides that are easy enough for a long-legged cat like her but the kittens do their best hopping along in the tall grass.

They laugh uproariously stumbling upon a gathering of grasshoppers, startled by their jumping on ears and faces.

She watches them for a moment as they can afford a small stop, they are making good time. The poor cubs needed a bit of fun, besides it would take their mind off of carrying the heavy waterskins.

Cheetara frowns noticing only two packs, her own and Kit's bouncing she hops along.

"Kat where's your pack?"

He doesn't hear her, shoving his paws out to his sister who's doing her best to avoid whatever is cupped in them.

"What?" he calls.

"Your pack," she tries again.

Kat frowns with big gold eyes looking sheepish, "guess I forgot it."

Both kittens turn expectant large eyes up at the cheetah neither willing to walk the distance back.

They've reached a half way point and walking back with two kittens would only take more time than necessary to retrieve the bag, it'd be easier to just grab it on her own and it would only take a minute, less even for her.

"Wait here, I'll be right back."

She's off like a cannon blast and her run is all too short before the rush of the stream reaches her ears.

Cheetara finds the lonely green canvas bag right where it was left at the river's edge.

Easy enough.

A dragonfly zips past her nose and she notices just a flash of motion further downstream where the water is mostly still but for the bob of movement just below the surface.

She hopes Tygra is nearby, fish would be much easier to come by than hunting for game and she swings the bag onto her hip before heading downstream.

Cheetara passes quietly through the thicket of trees and river rock keeping in mind Tygra may already be in the middle of a hunt or catch.

The cleric stops where she is just at the edge of the trees with the splash of the water's surface breaking and there's Tygra.

Her breath is suddenly frozen in her lungs because she can see him clearly now and every stripe he has is on display and everything else he has.

He's completely nude and up to his knees in water raking both sets of claws through his wet mane oblivious to his audience and she's sure she can't move.

In her 20 seasons she's never seen a nude cat before, well she-cats yes, as there was no sense in modesty amongst gender mutual peers, but never a male.

He looks carved from stone, or marble, unlike a she-cat he doesn't have soft curvatures anywhere. And each hard plane ripples with movement, even the simple inhale and exhale of breath causing sensuous contracting of lower abdominals where water droplets pool in the hollow of his navel.

Despite the coolness and her level of hydration being good Cheetara feels her throat dry.

She knew all about male anatomy, a cleric was greatly familiar with all forms of animal anatomy for the sake of combat even cats, especially toms. Anatomy texts and scrolls failed to illustrate anything like the large organ dangling between the tiger's sculpted thighs and her pulse pounds and her skin goes hot.

He is…a _beautiful _cat_._

Its only seconds and the prince's striped figure disappears into the water with a graceful arc and the cleric finds herself running, nearly bolting away with the prince none the wiser.

* * *

It is hours later at the stream's edge with the relocated company that Cheetara is still thinking on it. They had returned an hour later after both the lion and the panther's approval, the cheetah riding along in the tank after unhurriedly helping pack and then reload.

She feels…uncomfortable and doesn't know what to make of how hot the air around her seems, hotter even as the sun goes down and she wonders if she's imagining things or simply broadcasting physically her guilt.

Lion-O is watching her, perhaps with some misplaced concern as she knows she's very flushed, but he says nothing, just as he has for most of the day. He'd been just as quiet as she and Tygra, and Panthro, in fact all of them were, groggy and quiet in the humid day and she doesn't fault him for his silence.

But there's more than that, there's an air about Lion-O that's more than moody and she can't put her finger on it.

Tygra is standing at the river's edge upstream, arms folded, waiting for them. She notes his fur is dry and his armor perfectly arranged, with no evidence of his swim.

"About time," is all he says addressing Panthro who simply grunts.

"It's hardly sunset," Lion-O replies dispassionately climbing out after.

Cheetara wonders if she's imagining Tygra's gaze darkens following his brother's movement past him before his expression shifts with his eyes finding her.

She swallows down a lump in her throat before approaching because her heart is still pounding with her secret fresh in her mind. "Did you happen to find us anything to eat?"

He grins easy at her, "of course, you're not going hungry on my watch."

* * *

He _had_ fished and their fire continues long after dinner is cooked with Panthro doing the honors, she sits with both a full belly and a full mind next to Tygra who hasn't eaten much and if she thinks about it nor has Lion-O.

The crackle of fire catches her attention and Panthro is towering over the seated cats.

"Best we camp in the tank tonight, all this forest can't even see the moon out and our fire won't hold up for the night, conditions are too windy."

The panther is right, the night was going to be pitch-black and no cat would even be able to see their paws in front of their face soon.

The advice is good but more than anything doesn't wish to spend her night inside the tank again, she's still flushed and hot since they arrived, the shade and nearness of the water doing nothing to help. She's not sure she can take another night in there crowded and hot enough to crawl from her skin.

"I'll take a tent," Cheetara decides, "I need the fresh air."

"No. It's too dangerous for you to be alone out here, everyone will sleep in the tank, one more cramped night won't kill any of us."

The king's words are dismissive and resolute, leaving no room for debate and she knows she's being commanded.

"I'll stay with her," Tygra offers.

And just like that there's tension in the air.

Lion-O turns his eyes to Tygra with a scowl biting his words out with fangs, "I said it's too dangerous and I mean for any and everyone."

Cheetara nods, unwilling to display her disappointment.

As her king commanded and she's very tired and sure she won't be sleeping.

Tygra bristles at the whole exchange and she swears she hears him growling low in his throat but she isn't sure because there's the guttural sound of Panthro loudly clearing his throat.

"Sleep outside then. Perfect I can get some sleep without you two mindlessly locking horns tonight." The panther is entirely dismissive as he hands Tygra the rolled canvas. "It's going to get cold, stay together and stay close to the tank."

The huge cat had practically kicked them out in a hurry.

They are alone with only the dark and a dying fire as the tank whirls shut, Tygra grins wolfishly, "well looks like just you and me."

* * *

When Cheetara awakens Tygra is already gone and she lies between sleep and waking letting her mind wander to her company and its present state.

Tygra, Lion-O and this thing that seperates them and she wonders if she's to blame for this new thing.

She'd thought they were over this hurdle, this confusion she'd not meant to contribute to and had regardless. She'd seen the way they'd postered the previous evening over her want, her need to sleep under the stars and it exasperates her that their conflict still refuses to be buried.

Tygra had clearly refused what was an order simply for her sake and she wonders if she's wrong in believing the brothers could have come to blows, their dance had been exactly the same as she had seen a hundred times before but there was a quiet, a stillness that only follows an explosion she had seen in them.

Tygra's mood had lifted the moment they'd found themselves alone, but they simply pressed close and he'd slept before she'd a chance to speak with him curled round her possessively and the open tent flap helps as she feels her temperature climb.

And she's still thinking on her intrusion to his private swim and she feels a tingle and itch as she trickles with sweat and moisture and it's all so overwhelming, everything.

And confusing.

She searches briefly for her last waterskin, knowing she's been going through them very quickly lately.

…

And she's lost her own supply pack.

She sighs, of course.

* * *

Cheetara has barely stepped outside her tent, noticing it is later in the morning than she realized and she's still a bit tired.

Tygra presents her tiny travel bag out to her with flourish and a grin. "Looking for this?"

Her ruby red eyes light in wonder and a surprised smile graces her face. "You found it."

"By the river this morning, you must have dropped it when you left," he says proudly.

Her stomach drops and she steals a glance at his expression, but he seems truly none the wiser to the real reason the bag was so easily forgotten at the river. It doesn't make her feel any better if anything she feels even worse.

She had come to find him to discuss the two brothers in hopes to figure out what was going on with the two of them.

Clearly it would have to wait as her paws were not exactly clean either.

And she dreaded it.

Tygra notices her joyful expression drops in an instant.

"Thank you," she murmurs in an almost mechanical way.

Her eyes will not meet his and her ears pull back and seem to wilt with her whole body. She looks anxious and awkward; he thinks it is a beautifully sweet but worrisome expression he's sure he's never seen before on her.

"Hey."

His large paw cups her delicate face and her eyes are wide with some strange inner struggle.

"You okay?"

She's sure she'll feel much better just confessing and apologizing for behaving so dishonorably.

Her own hand reaches to join his at her cheek. "I was spying on you."

There. The knot of guilt in her belly untwists and she feels like she can breathe again.

His expression is one of great puzzlement, as though asking her to clarify and the knot tightens again in anxiety.

"At the river after we left to run the water back."

She watches his brows rise in shock. He blinks as though trying to clear his vision of something.

Tygra isn't sure he's heard her correctly or if in fact he is even awake right this moment. It's too strange for it not to be some dream he can blame on bad rajh root they'd used to season their fish catch the previous night.

Or it's her idea of a joke. A confusing and bizarre one, but the cleric _is_ full of surprises, usually some greater wisdom or magic but never mischief, especially anything so suggestive. If the goal of this experiment of hers is to pique his interest it definitely has and he wonders what she's up to and if he even knows her at all to pull such an uncharacteristic prank..

He just stares at her dumbfounded by her confession and its implications, watching his beautiful companion's cheeks color.

So… Not a joke.

He remembers taking a swim in the group's absence, the heat being too much and seeming to follow him well into the night despite it.

Cheetara watches Tygra's expression shift and a smug and absolutely wicked grin lights his face and seems to get wider as he watches her struggle with her embarrassment. She's sure it isn't possible for a cat to look anymore self-inflated than he does.

"You were watching me wash?"

He doesn't need her confirmation as much as he needs to voice it aloud to believe it.

"Yes and for that I am sorry."

He doesn't say anything else for several long moments, unsure what exactly can be said and she seems to be waiting for some sort of berating from him that will not come. He cannot exactly find anything but flattery and surprise stirring around in his mind and interest in his loins.

A deep interest that has been hard to ignore.

"Why?" he wonders.

He's not sure if he's asking why she feels the need to be sorry or why Cheetara was acting so out of character in the first place.

That pink to her cheeks only becomes more vibrant till it seems to blend well into her eye markings, becoming a part of them. She looks cornered and almost scared and he can't quite figure out why.

He just knows she's seems to be having a hard time with the question, it looks almost painful for her to try to flounder her way through an explanation.

Tygra has seen her squirm long enough, he has no interest in seeing her completely uncomfortable.

"No harm done," he replies smoothly. He gives her a smile that he hopes is reassuring but he's pretty sure his eyes aren't able to lie about his interest. "And no crime in being curious."

Cheetara nods, taking a step backward to dismiss herself but Tygra is quick to catch hold of her arm and she nearly jumps from the sudden flash burn of contact.

His hand easily wrapping round the whole circumference of her upper arm and he has a fleeting thought of her light and thin bones being easily broken, being a cheetah, her anatomy makes her bones much more delicate than most cats.

It's an odd thing, her being so capable of soundly defeating him black and blue and he's worried about crushing her bones.

Still he loosens his already light grip of her limb but doesn't let her go.

"Cheetara, is everything okay?"

She nods again with that look that says she's anything but her usual self.

Tygra lightly strokes her captured arm with his thumb before letting her go completely. "Okay."

His response is relenting, perhaps she would benefit more from not being pressed, the last thing he wants to do is smother her.

She says something about going to scout the perimeter before she's off and he's left standing there no less confused than before.

What was that all about?

With the afternoon sun rolling in there was still plenty to do about setting up camp, he could ponder in peace while he worked. After all he always thought his best when he worked and he was edgy, the activity would do him plenty of good.

They had traveled nearly two days straight and Tygra found he was quick to stretch his legs and volunteer to see what quarry could be caught for dinner. He got restless and irritable without some sort of physical activity daily and sleeping in a cramped tank nearly piled atop each other was more than enough to drive him insane.

The only plus side he could come up with was Cheetara, she seemed to deliberately settle close to him late in the evening when the only sounds of the night was the dull whirling hum of the tank and occasional snores from the others. He himself was often already asleep when a press of her head into his neck and shoulder would stir him conscious and she would still as if caught in some crime before he relaxed. When she seemed assured he has drifted off once more she nearly burrows herself into his warmth and it isn't long at all before he follows.

Strangely when he awakens she's usually back to being at arm's length as everyone else stirs with the rising of the sun.

Her need for propriety he'd once thought only a symptom of newness, compounded by Lion-O's own hurt feelings she seemed careful to protect, he thinks on a bit more after this morning.

He wonders now in the months passed if he's wrong in his presumption that the two of them have long reached a precipice. They are often sneaking away from the eyes of the others who seem to be everywhere and paying far too much attention to them just to steal quiet conversation or share affection.

He's careful with her, careful to restrain himself, to carefully measure kisses and watch where his clawed hands want to wander, cleric or not she was worth a long courtship and this is very new to them, to her.

It's a bittersweet kind of torture.

Because he's still just a cat, a tiger at the peak of his health and according to awkward lessons by tutors of Thundera's royal court, at the peak of his hormones, the urge to procreate coming to a boil sometime between 15 seasons and 29, driving males to constant distraction with their females and making resistance impossible and painful when exposed to females in heat.

He had scoffed then as a very young cub at the idea of being ruled by such a savage need, convinced himself only weaker cats became slaves to such urges.

By the time he was only thirteen he wasn't scoffing. And he was certain whether he wanted to or not he'd noticed every she-cat within a mile of him, some of them at least three times his age. Their sweet scents so much more noticeable as he matured bringing everything into sharper focus.

No scent more appealing than hers that had changed as she grew.

Only half a season after his thirteenth birthday did something hit him like a ton of boulders, and it came in the middle of a warm night when his window stood open. A need, an urge, an itch that his body seems to instinctively know just how to scratch. He'd felt possessed slinking out of his room late nights and early mornings just to catch her scent in the air in the palace gardens outside the walls of the cleric's temple, unable to do much but simply breathe traces of her in, especially those times of the year when her scent became something new and alluring. He'd find himself pacing for hours at the wall unable to help aching and throbbing when her powerful scent flared his nostrils and _tingled_ on his tongue.

When she was in heat he could almost taste her and the desire to mate with her became stronger than anything he'd ever known.

He rarely managed even a glimpse of her in those days as Jaga often made his rounds through the connecting garden and Tygra was quick to disappear lest the elder wizard catch him climbing trellises of day astrids for a good vantage point.

His sword and defense lessons were increased to a grueling physical pace only days later, the physical activity left him too worn and pained to do much more than wince through every step walking back to his bedchamber at the day's end and he suspected his father and Jaga had much to do with making him all but incapable of venturing out and seeking mating with her or any female.

He'd fought hard in his long lessons and control often slipped away and it had felt good, better than good even, especially when he'd beaten back his usual teachers in savagery and after a few days he is surprised to see it is only General Grune who braves him.

The General's methods were different where his usual teachers blows were measured and calculated and sought only to outlast him Grune poked and prodded him physically and mentally. The colossal sabered cat every day goading him to higher heights of anger as he dodged a spindly cub's attacks. He had teased, he had taunted, urging Tygra to what he called real savagery with tough and sometimes cruel words to get his energy spent, cruelly made implications of a _kitten_ with not the power to claim his throne, nor the mate he sought. Before he had known it he tasted blood in his mouth and felt flesh under his claws and his father has arrived at the sound of his roar of fury and Grune spattered with lacerations of teeth and claws only laughs heartily and congratulates his father on such a virile son.

He doesn't want to think about Grune and what a cub he was to have not known it to be no more that instigation into brutality.

It is years later before the beckoning of her bi-annual heat no longer holds him prisoner and through every ounce of willpower he partakes of other activities that do not include stalking the perimeter of the clerisy nor fighting like a feral.

He'd done well in avoiding inappropriate behavior expected of him such as mating but he had been a normal teenage cub and had sought the company of she-cats from time to time to tamper down what no amount of physical activity could.

Curiosity.

Tygra halts mid step and is sure he suddenly understands.

He couldn't possibly pretend to know what exactly a cleric did all day, he was only a prince and as such was mostly forbidden to even step foot inside the clerisy, though it didn't mean he hadn't dared such, he still didn't know much about her life inside of it. But if he had to guess he's sure he can safely conclude a life devoid of romance or any kind of courtship.

Cheetara had been bold that night in the Elephant's Village when she kissed him sweetly and chastely, and she had nearly froze when he sealed his mouth more firmly to hers and traced the seam of her lips with his tongue seeking entrance.

The breathy little groan she'd made with that first caress of tongues was more than enough to tell him she'd been overwhelmed with sensation and he'd guided it into an easy tender meeting that allowed her to relax and just enjoy.

He'd found her to be a quick study and she had quickly become an expert at such kisses that left him purring, but he's always been a greedy cat and wants more than light sweeps of tongues touching, it's become almost a cruel tease when he wants to devour her whole and touch her in ways she's probably never even imagined.

He casts those primal thoughts away often but after today he isn't so sure his want is entirely one-sided or unreasonable. He'd seen desire bright as the stars in her flushed expression and thinks perhaps they are both behaving a bit too cautiously.

She's curious and he's more than willing to help her work through it.

* * *

He finds her in her tent that same evening long after the other cats have retired to the tank, her eyes are closed and her claws are resting on each knee as she sits cross-legged, the bright light of the fire he has going just a few feet outside creating blotted shadows inside the cozy shelter.

The tent's warmth blankets him as soon as he steps in, the light dim but he sees her fine.

It's almost too perfect.

She opens her eyes at the rustle of her tent flap and he gives her a small smile. "Can I come in?"

Cheetara assesses him for a long moment, surprised he is without his usual armor, instead he's taken to donning his royal blues from Thundera, this alone gives her pause, but if she's expecting an answer he doesn't offer one. It nearly takes her breath away the reminder of a time and place that seems long gone.

Not to be missed either is the way the lighter, thinner material fits the tiger's frame and highlights his musculature as well as his leanness, her notice only resolves her will to focus on her mediation as soon as possible.

Tygra has not missed her questioning look, or the flicker of interest in said look, further confirming his theory.

But she nods and moves over to allow him entrance, he sits across from her with this easy expression that nearly makes her squirm, like he knows something she does not.

"Curiosity."

By the way she raises one short blonde brow and ever so slightly tilts her head his direction he knows he's caught her attention which is better than hours ago when she didn't even want to look at him.

Good. He wants that attention undivided.

Tygra shrugs easily. "You're just curious. It's not a crime Cheetara," he reasons. "No need to beat yourself up over it just means you're paying attention, even better you're paying that kind of attention to me."

She clearly doesn't want to discuss it by the way her shoulders tighten minutely.

"Too much attention," she quietly refutes, "I'm a cleric Tygra and I'm sworn to protect my king and my prince, from harm and honor them, I've failed in the latter."

"Says who?" he argues. "What silly cleric tradition says it's a crime to indulge in passions and impulses from time to time?"

Tygra knows he's needling her a bit, but he needs her to talk and knows triggering her emotions is a sure fire way to get some kind of response besides her quiet guilt.

Something is wrong that he can't pretend isn't, it's in the air between them and he's done ignoring it.

She glares hard at the words 'silly cleric tradition' but he knows her expression is not a truly loaded one. "All of them. What you say does not change my actions or violation of your persons. A cleric should know better."

"Maybe a cleric should," he gives her, not wholly agreeing, "but I promise you your attempt to 'punish' this out of your system won't help you. It's got nothing to do with discipline or honor. It's all about instincts and my guess is yours have been buried too long."

Her pretty pink mouth sets in a thin line at his words, it's a dead giveaway that she is annoyed with him, and he's reminded of that proud little kitten she used to be and is satisfied to know is still inside.

She means to go back to her mediation session without another word to the tiger, she knows she's being unfair avoiding him after her confession, but she can't stand that she's sure he's finding it all so very amusing.

But so far both his expression and his words seem sincere; she slips one long slender leg out from underneath the other to sit on her shins.

"Instincts?"

And there's that curiosity again burning bright in her expression.

Tygra nods and pauses wondering how to level with her in a way that won't bruise her feelings causing her to reject any assurances and suggestions he had, she was like him more than she knew though she'd never admit behind that placidity she was nearly as proud as him.

"You're a cleric, being driven by impulse and reflex isn't new is it? Sometimes it's all you've got to work with and your best weapon. What's driving you to be…" He searches for a word deciding on: "distracted is just instincts, hormones pushed to the front of your mind more and more since we started this thing. You might be a cleric but you're perfectly normal when it comes to being curious and wanting to satisfy it."

She doesn't answer but it's clear she's still his audience.

"If anything," he purrs, "might surprise you how much better going with those instincts will ease your mind."

She doesn't miss the way the suggestive hint rolls off the tiger's tongue his tone darkening his voice to a deep purr that makes her insides flutter.

Sometimes Cheetara wonders how he can go from understanding and mature to positively wicked in no time at all and even more daunting is the way she unconsciously responds to him when he does so.

She's sure she's slowly being seduced with her eyes wide open.

"Well I've sworn off tiger watching from now on," she promises.

He picks at imaginary dirt from underneath his claws before answering, "wouldn't help, in fact I'm guessing you need a more hands on approach. How about a little exercise?"

The last time they exercised anything was a typical sparring lesson but something told Cheetara this "exercise" would have nothing to do with sparring.

"Exercise?"

"An experiment if you will. You came, you saw, you peeped and what happened? How do you feel honesty Cheetara?"

Her mouth twists trying to frown as she works through her thoughts. She's felt strange and uncomfortable since then and perhaps it is not the heat after all poking at her.

"You're not satisfied because you haven't gotten what you want."

She's wary but she needs an answer for her feelings and he's right for the first time meditation is not helping.

"And…what is it that you think I want?"

The tiger smiles, and it's a secret smile but it's less roguish than she'd expect from him bordering on gentle.

"Guess we'll find out. I'm yours, whatever you want, free rein all access. Its touch you crave and touch you'll have."

"I don't—she started but falters. It would do no good to pretend she didn't want to, didn't need to.

She hasn't been able to stop watching him all the time during the day or waking in the night over sensitized and ready to crawl from her skin. A beautiful ache that she can't seem to relieve is driving her crazy.

Cheetara is sure she isn't in heat, as her heat cycles mostly made her uncomfortable, irritable, and driven to distraction by males. In the past sparring more and meditation had curbed any unwanted thoughts or ideas quickly, like the other she-cats within her order she was relieved of duty and sworn to remain within the safety of the clerisy.

"And what about you?"

He can tell she's apprehensive, the cleric may be inexperienced but she's a smart enough she-cat to question forbidden fruit.

Seigro fruit that grows in roping vines on large rock faces is what comes to Cheetara's mind.

Rich orange and ticked with black pigment, she wonders if it's a coincidence that her favorite fruit is the same color as her prince, it's even stranger and more awing is that whenever he kisses her he _tastes_ just as sharply tart and spicy-sweet.

And whenever his snarky tongue is gently parting her lips and slipping inside her mouth there's a blinding urge to suckle and nip him.

"I'm just your canvas."

"Canvas?" she echoes not understanding.

"Your parchment? Your clay? Mold me."

Ah. And there again is the Tygra she's most familiar with, teasing her with a dare, a tantalizing coax into danger with the way his silky tongue caresses 'mold me'.

Just as fast as he comes a bit closer his amber brown eyes are dark and serious and he is quietly waiting her rejection or acquiescence. She had expected more amusement, some smug presumption and even desire, but if he's feeling anything like that he is hiding it better than she'd expect.

"And you'll just sit there while I used you to satisfy my own desires to 'paw' you?"

Her response is airy, in fact too airy to convince him she's unaffected.

Yes. He was definitely in trouble. His blood is nearly boiling and she hasn't even laid a claw on him yet.

Too late to rethink it.

"Still as stone," he promises.

"And if I make you uncomfortable—

She doesn't finish because he seems to be fighting a grin, obviously her words are amusing him. "Nothing you do could make me uncomfortable. Whatever you want."

She edges over until she is nearly nose to nose with him; his expression schooled in what he hopes is placidity and patience. He itches to steal a kiss from her but quells the temptation, after all a promise is a promise.

Her small paws lightly meet his chest and press slightly until they are flat against him; she can feel his heart tapping against her palms in a quicker rhythm than normal and she's surprised to see his expression hasn't changed, if anything he looks completely relaxed and lazy.

It reassures her for some reason, his feigned coolness.

She follows the line of his broad shoulders with a long light caress up and out onto well-developed biceps, marveling at the hardness of them with the sheath of softness his short, dense fur creates around them, to his large white paws that like her own are lethally clawed. She picks each up examining them, palms and pads of his fingers rough from what she'd guess is years of whip, sword and other weapons work.

There's a small scar that runs down the side of his wrist nearly invisible if not for the sparseness of fur that barely covered it, she thinks to ask him about it and a few of the others but she's too absorbed into her exploration to pause long enough. Another time would come for questions.

Her soft soothing appraisal has his heart rate slowing to a languid pleasurable rhythm until those wandering hands move up passed the point of his hip bones to rest against either side of his navel _beneath_ his clothing.

He's suddenly wide awake and those little paws are still moving tracing every ridge and outline of the muscles of his chest and belly, stopping every so often to caress back down. In an instant he finds a new kind of pleasure trickling in his belly.

He's watching her and that serene expression she usually wears is gone to be replaced with something else that has her black pupils dilated, but her long blonde head of dappled silk falling forward past her shoulders has hidden her before he can assess it further.

She has ahold of the edge of his garment and grips it firmly in askance daring to meet his eyes, Tygra's only answer is a playful light in his brown eyes and he doesn't budge.

He's teasing her.

A blush has stained her cheeks and she looks away but she does not relent her hold, she's always been able to meet anything head on and she refuses to allow this to be any different.

There's a visible tremble to her hands and he nearly takes them into his own to kiss a reassurance sorry to have spooked her. But he had promised to remain still and that would perhaps help more than anything his touch had to offer.

He's sure as well with his involvement this would quickly become something of his desire when this exercise belonged to her and would only be what she made of it.

He finally complies lifting his arms to allow her to slip it off of him.

He recalls this is the second time she's partially undressed him, once for the sake of patching his wounds, she was all playful and mothering but now faced with the same exposure to him she's gun-shy with nothing to do but fully confront his state of undress as something to be desired and he expects it's a bit daunting for her.

But she's taking to it, slowly but fairly well.

She's become distracted by just the simple act of Tygra's breathing, well she supposes its more the way his muscles just under and above his navel seem to contract to even sharper points with each simple exhale.

Tygra is right, her problem is she's curious and beyond that.

Cheetara gets the same reaction, the contraction from his muscles when her hands ghost over his navel and he makes a noise low in his chest and it makes her insides flutter.

When she chances seeing his expression it looks almost dazed.

And she repeats the caress and gets the same rumbling noise its tone too dark to completely be a purr and tightening of those muscles, his eyes are closed and one pointed ear swivels backwards, a sign of content.

She watches him for a while as her fingers slip through the silk of his pelt tracing higher then down again, she likes the sounds he makes and the way his body responds, muscles making a ripple through his skin wherever her hand moves, he purrs muzzily when she reaches his chest but that noise deepens and darkens with every time her hand descends.

This, Cheetara realizes, is much better than spying.

Tygra hazily realizes the new pressure on his hips is his beautiful cheetah carefully perched atop him, her face pressed into his neck, and she's _nuzzling_.

He wasn't at all unfamiliar with the act but it never failed to stir something deep within him and his nose meets the other side of her slender throat to scent her as well before nuzzling. It was the first time that he could recall returning the gesture for anyone. It was more than an embrace, a kiss, even a caress it was a raw kind of intimacy, carnal in its suggestion but also a deep affection.

Clearly she hadn't lost all of her instincts.

He wants badly to wrap his arms around her but he seeks to keep his word throughout this experiment.

Cheetara breathes pulling in his scent through her nose, filling her lungs with him, but she is far from satisfied.

Tygra was wrong.

That desire tickling her belly is only growing, gnawing at her insides…

She inhales again and again her nose buried in the nape of the striped cat's neck, his short pelt tickling her nose.

He smells…_heavenly, _so sharp and masculine and she wonders why she'd never noticed just how addicting his scent is, how inviting, and the line of his pulse makes her teeth itch to set into it.

When she raises her blonde spotted head, she's a bit flushed but looking right at him and she hasn't moved from her nearly hovered careful position on his lap and he can't help the grin he gives her.

"See? No harm done."

She doesn't respond immediately burying her face back into the juncture of his neck and he chuckles at her meekness. It's an endearing and funny little change from her usual demeanor.

Cheetara boldly lays a long lick upon that striped flesh in reward for his jest and she feels his breath catch and hears the purring exhale from her tiger prince and she's only vaguely aware that the line they are walking is narrowing and her balance on it has been greatly compromised with one little lick of her tongue.

Tygra's eyes snap open only to slide half shut when the warm wet slide of her tongue strokes the back of his ear this time and her sharp canines nip lightly at the pointed tip leaving a prickle that knifes straight down his body and stirs his sex completely awake.

It's ironic, he thinks, he's learned something too, he's never had his ears licked before or nipped and he's finding they are much more sensitive than he'd ever thought.

Tygra barely has time to recover when the cheetah dares to press her palm against the bulge between his thighs and she nearly jumps back as though burned when she feels movement underneath her hand.

He's not at all ready for the feel of her small hand closing around his phallus and squeezing experimentally and he has to open his eyes to make sure he isn't imagining things and sure enough the cheetah's hand has disappeared beneath his pants and she's still wearing that rosy flush that had spread to her chest.

He's now actively panting and has to close his eyes to the world around him to center himself, but when he opens them Cheetara's stunning coral eyes are smoldering with red flame focused on where her hand has ventured and that doesn't really help matters that she hasn't let him go.

A strange chain reaction occurs as she tries her best to encircle all of him in her hand, her heart hammering in awe and fear of his maleness, as it _twitches_ and…_pulsates _and her core does the same in sympathy.

Went they finally met eyes the two cats blink with half-lidded gazes, peering into one another, watching just as much as listening to the rise and fall of breaths, Cheetara notes Tygra doesn't look relaxed anymore, in fact his brown eyes look orange and wild and she's tingling in that heated stare.

She's still hot and it's spreading, especially between her thighs and the awkwardness she'd felt before rears forward.

Her thighs want to clench and squeeze together to relieve an insistant pressure and hide herself.

His nostrils flare just as she releases his turgid flesh to make a hasty retreat from his lap and he knows in that moment he's going to have to break his promise to her.

Cheetara's eyes go wide the moment his large hands seize her by the hips and she's locked in his grip. He's not hurting her and she knows offhandedly just about a hundred different ways to free herself despite his greater strength but her heart rate spikes and her body rushes with adrenaline anyway. She's sure she can't remember why she'd want to be freed anyway.

"You promised," she reminds him utterly confused as to why he'd deceive her.

Tygra's too busy watching something else to even look her in the eye and it takes her a moment to realize it's her breast heaving and she swallows doing her best to control her breathing.

An eyebrow quirks and he smiles brazenly, "I'm adjusting the rules just a bit. Don't go, it's okay. You smell delicious."

She sways unsteadily, floating on his licentious praise and she needs something to hold onto, one hand finds a broad shoulder and she needs the other one to stop from falling.

Tygra has it kissing the palm lightly.

"Let's give you what you want…"

Her long dark lashes dip in another slow blink as she raises her eyes to his.

The first thing he notices when he holds her there firmly is how soft and pliable and _small _she is, softer than he'd think possible for a warrior, even more so a cleric, the only sharpness of her the jut of her hip bones, both points directing his eyes to the lower bits of white pelt beneath her navel that he's very fond of, she has a soft indent of musculature just there and he's longed to lick it.

Tygra nearly has a mind to let her go when she squirms but he's already smelled her arousal, felt the evidence she longs to keep from him, and he's all but hypnotized. It drives him to pull her forward and fully against the press of his member.

"Tygra-don't- she manages to gasp trying to warn him.

Her tone is pressing but it is far too late, when her center mets and throbs against the heavy press of his she's no longer trickling moisture but flooding with it ruining his royal garb.

Tygra doesn't recoil as she'd feared, nor shudder in disgust as her wetness continues to spread and the smell of it grows thick in the air. He purrs and it's a wicked, unapologetic rumble as he inhales snatching up her scent and the small amount of blood that wasn't in his groin is heading there now.

She's so hot she nearly scalds him, saturating both of their clothing and giving the impression of zero barriers between them. His rigid and considerable sex is smothered against her covered and still palpable leaking folds and it's so sharp, so good, he hisses and it's almost too much.

Cheetara bucks in aftershock of her movement, starting like a wild mare.

"It's okay," he assures her running a soothing hand down her belly before pulling her forward again.

The cleric gasps, and it's a breathy helpless little noise that must be repeated. Her gasp comes again this time her open mouth exposing the points of her tiny fangs.

Before she can cry out again at the drag of his sex against hers he's covered her mouth with his own and it's all but a blur, a tangling of tongues mating the way their bodies strain to do, in rhythm together.

He has his claws snarled in her hair at the nape of her neck and the other spanning the small of her back and she has to come up for air at a particularly hard thrust.

The blonde haired cleric's eyes are half-lidded and locked onto his dark ambers as he tightens his hold on her to a slower lazy rhythm, her claws finding his striped biceps and digging harshly. He growls only dragging their sexes against each other even slower.

"Please," she finally manages to whimper and she isn't sure if she's asking for him to stop or continue. "Tygra-

She can't seem to make up her mind and her body continues to betray her instinctively moving with him in that same slow undulation. She's lost and she's beautiful rolling against him.

"That's my girl you're doing so good."

Cheetara's rhythm breaks as she squirms hard mashing them together brutally her claws retracting fully into his shoulders and they both hiss flashing fanged teeth.

She's trying to make sense of her body overwhelmed and still wanting, needing retreat and still begging, she's never been more confused and at war, it's too much.

"Just tell me to stop," he murmurs in her ear. "Just say it and I will. Whatever you want."

Cheetara's panting and even through her clothing he can see the clear pebbling of her nipples as her chest heaves and her eyes squeeze shut, her thighs flexing as she builds towards something that she can't understand.

She moans and rolls herself against him eagerly, blindly seeking an end to her torment.

"Please."

And he understands and he wants to give it to her but not like this.

It's too much for her and watching her may be too much for him.

He's going to have to go slow and ease some pressure from the both of them.

She is shifted from his lap abruptly without a word of explanation. With the spell momentarily broken she had a mind to weep in frustration until she feels him behind her and securing her flush against him with an easy pull.

"Miss me?" he soothes roaming a hand down her hip that bunches in response to his caress. He licks the back of her ear before working his hand up her navel circling it with a roughened thumb. "Relax."

It's difficult as she can still feel the hard thickness of him straining against her rump, her throat is bared with the brush of his hand and his mouth whispers over her pulse.

That hand slithers down and beneath her navel where she's never been touched before, warm paws make faint contact before truly touching, a petting atop her sex and every muscle in her shoulders, neck and back take on a rather hard and strained appearance at the first brush of his fingers moving just a hair down further.

Cheetara makes an odd squeaking sound the moment he parts her with deft fingers careful to retract his claws. It wouldn't do to cut her fragile flesh.

His tongue and teeth continue to worry at her pulse point as his questing fingers contine to soothe her anxiety and coax more wetness and cries from her and she can feel just as much as hear Tygra's dark purring and she starts with the new shock of a roughened palm from his other hand sweeping across her nipple.

She'd become so dizzy so pliant she hadn't even felt the zip pulled down releasing her breasts.

The tiger beats her to her attempt to cover herself refusing to release her from his teasing even when her claws bite into the flesh of his forearm.

She's overwhelmed and overstimulated and still hungry for more her body languidly parting her thighs and arching her rear and it earns her a dangerous growl and a sharp prick of fangs on her shoulder.

She feels…woozy and she's sure she's going to buckle over from her kneeling position against him but she's still held fast and easy.

And she's so beautiful, gasping and panting and his favorite a high mewling when he carefully sweeps his fingers across her clit before finally dipping inside her.

She groans prettily at the slide of entrance but she's tensing.

The spongy sheath yields slightly in seconds. "Shh, easy, slow, nice and slow…"

Cheetara's only answer is a surge of her hips back against him trying desperately to soothe her ache and a surge forward to escape her torment, afraid of the build climbing inside her as he slides a digit in and out of her just as he promised slow and easy.

She hisses and she's sure her mind and heart is going to explode when he sweeps across her swollen bud again, she grips his wrist digging connecting to his hand that is punishing the most as she makes that whimpering mewl he's in love with.

They must be quite a picture, panting and pulsing pressed together, a simple shift of her upper body to the ground and a slide of her garment off and he could have her in a perfect lordosis position and commence with want he's dying for.

His teeth nearly break the flesh of her throat with the thought and harder dismissal of it.

Cheetara would not protest but he refuses to break her trust and violate her trust.

What they are doing now would have to be enough.

He's building her achingly slow though, she's never been touched this way and she needs to be handled with gentle care just as much as passion. He doesn't ever want her to forget this moment, his touch and how he alone brought her such pleasure, her first pleasure like this.

And the last, he vows scraping his teeth along her neck again before lapping at her pulse.

Tygra's instincts tell him to bury his fangs into her neck as she writhes and he's annoyed that its even harder to banish that thought.

And those sounds she makes and the way her backside slides against him make it hard for him to remember why not, he's so hard he hurts. He winces and growls continuing to lay open-mouthed kiss behind her ear caressing the span of her body that's gone taunt as a bowstring.

She's gasping in great lungful of air as she's stretched more fully with the slide of now two fingers moving in and out of her sending shockwaves to her core and he's moving them within her slick inner walls in tandem to flicking her clit with his thumb.

"Slow," he reminds her. That hand torturing her nipples slides down her belly pushing back against her navel before gradually releasing to show her what he wants from her.

"Breathe slow, in and out."

Her core squeezes around the hot slide of his fingers inside her just as her heart feels squeezed and pounds faster.

The intensity climbs to a point of almost pain as she does her best to slow her breathing, she manages a series of staccato gasps as he touches her. Its agony and she's damp with sweat from the effort even as she spreads herself wider and her long hair is a wild tangle falling away from her throat to tickle her thighs and she's the sexiest creature he's ever seen.

"That's it, slower. Very good."

He scrapes a claw against her nipple and she nearly screams.

Cheetara whimpers between her breaths before it shifts to a moaning that pitches higher and higher before she gives a final strangled cry as she climaxes powerfully.

Her vision dances with spots and she's only vaguely aware of being lowered to rest on her back.

When she opens her eyes Tygra's still sitting across from her but its_what_ he's doing that makes her tender sex ache all over again even though she's sore after her strong climax. He's calmly licking the back of his hands, then his fingers and palm, slick with her essence, purring in content.

"Feel better?" he asks between licks.

She can't answer of even swallow watching him.

And Cheetara notes his ruined attire and is suddenly extremely self-conscious of the mess she's made and that she can still make out his large straining member.

He cannot be comfortable.

The cheetah rolls to her side and he finally notices her concerned expression.

"I'm fine," he promises.

She looks doubtful and sympathetic, sweet, even barebreasted and damp with sweat and her release. When she notices his eyes she's moving to cover herself but she isn't blushing as hotly as usual and it's a start.

He licks again his palm and feels a tingling and a need to salivate.

Tygra licks again and again all traces of her from his skin still wanting more and he feels that familiar drive of years ago to claim her and he can't stop licking loving the taste and that tingle.

She sleeps and he lays awake surrounded in her scent, awaiting and ready to protect what was now his with his life against all others. His hand has reddened a bit from the rough assault of his tongue and still he licks.


	2. Pandora's Box

**CURIOUS Part Two**

**Pandora's Box**

_7 years ago…_

It starts in her third year with the clerics, one afternoon when she's working with her staff in a rhythmic defense pattern she'd been taught by one of the elder clerics.

Cheetara finds the hard part is not switching from her left to right underhand to overhand but the hand strikes of her free hand that are to follow, the training center is quiet but for the occasional grunts and grimaces of others in solo and partnered weapons training.

When she arrives nearly an hour early for weapons and defense training it's mostly quiet and nearly empty but for a few cats suited in their training tunics of bronze and Jaga's four high-cleric guards taking their places in each corner of the room. They are aptly monikered by students of the clerisy "_quarter guards_" for their purpose of evening sentinels for the clerisy, one for the north, south, east and west sectors of their fortress and their positions of supervision do not variety with each at a north, south, east and west corner of the training center.

Their critique is unspoken to the younger clerics, students like her, but every shaky technique is marked with the keen eyes of the quarters catching even the most subtle errors easily. A "quarter" providing assistance only in the certainty of a young cleric's need of it but _never_ want of.

A lesson every cleric learns is answers and assistance are often within one's own grasp.

Cheetara heads straight for the western corner and the high sharp black tuffed ears of the caracal high-cleric standing in the corner wheel to the sound of Cheetara approach, high-cleric Cara's head follows turning leisurely to see the cub coming.

As is custom Cheetara gives a simple bow that the cleric returns with quiet dignity.

Cheetara has noted the high-cleric's hand sweeping past the staffs in the front of the staff rack to rest on a weapon of black wood on the far right rung; she presents the weapon to Cheetara.

"Your weapon."

The cub bounces the wood of the quarter staff in her hand testing its weight; it is heavier than her usual weapon, not by much but enough that lingering soreness will be inevitable after drills with the weapon for the hours required.

The caracal raises a brow with a reserved saffron gaze but her lips playing with the idea of a smile at the cub's puzzlement.

"A lesson comes too with this young Cheetara. We must build a strong body to accompany a strong mind."

The cub nods, the message is almost surely Jaga's instruction from Cara's mouth.

She begins after finding an empty mat of woven grass reed, she keeps in mind Jaga's words as she spins the weapon.

She makes some adjustments to her stance winding her staff till its spinning in a whistle and she's crouching and kneeling and kicking and striking an invisible opponent varying between her staff and feet and hands.

It isn't even an hour later and she blows out a breath before pulling it back in slow focusing on her breathing technique just for a few minutes to get her heart rate slowing back to normal despite her intense practice.

Cheetara can sense more than see when high-cleric Malyn stops at the edge of her mat to observe her. Cheetara has a mind to run through a more complex drill with the weapon but refrains as Malyn was not the type of cat that would praise her showy display.

When Cheetara finishes at the sound of the temple chime signaling the first rest period she bows gliding a well arched foot forward and bending the other to the watching cleric.

The lynx returns the gesture with an arresting and powerful grace Cheetara is awed of. She's a divine cat even with plaited silver and brown tickled hair shimmering, a few winding strands loose on the left hiding a missing ear. A long scar shiny and pink splits her tawny-grey face from nose to her cheek to throat but neither seem to do anything to detract from her face, savage and beautiful.

The scar and mangled ear, Cheetara recalls remains a tribute to her will to live and prowess in fighting off seven lizard generals tooth and claw, weaponless at only seventeenth seasons old in the Great Market Massacre sixteen seasons past.

"Very good."

Then she's gone back to the south side of the center without anything else for the cheetah.

Jaga does not arrive by midmorning's bell toll and it is a signal to all clerics their advisor would not be present until tomorrow's lessons having business in the palace.

The clerisy was in the best claws possible with the healing hands of the caracal Cara should injure occur as well as to lead mediation, Bali's wisdom of weapons and warfare would ensure new drills were covered and Malyn would lead their late afternoon sessions in hand to hand combat.

At the second chime signaling resume of drills Cheetara rocks her weapon palm to palm stalking the motionless wood of her reflex dummy, twisting her lips in thought deciding on the best way to prepare an attack.

Her fur stands in her neck with the awareness of eyes.

When she turns a pair of gold-green eyes flit away with the owner of them fiddling with his staff at being caught staring. He returns to a similar drill as the cheetah had performed, his movements lack her fluid grace and he can't seem to keep his hands steady.

The fishing cat's brown tunic is dark with sweat as he struggles through his drills.

She's seen this cat enough to know his real skill came from weaponless hands and a polecat like physique built for stealth and speed, even the older students sparred reluctantly with him, unwilling to risk hurt pride in losing a hand to hand match to such a small, young cat.

_Ding, ding, ding_.

She is expected to start her mediation in ten minutes after putting away her weapon and gentle stretching, Cheetara wastes no time crossing her mat to return her weapon to its rack that has been wheeled to the center of the room with the other racks, a discarded throwing star is retrieved from beneath the long range weapons cabinet by a sooty colored cat with gold weighted wrist bands Cheetara recognizes. High cleric Bali restores the star to its case before ushering forward the rest of the cats for their weapons.

Finigan is there before she is but not before a crowd has gathered.

The grey-brown fishing cat moves like a mongoose and slips through the thick din of cats like oil before emerging from the other side of them weapon returned.

He nearly knocks head into her chin, she'd forgotten though fifteen seasons old Finigan was a slow grower as well and would likely be a head shorter than she upon full adulthood, she's already gaining height with lengthly legs her clan was known for.

He wheels backward just in time to avoid real impact. "Sorry."

Cheetara nods giving him a bit of a smile as he seems nearly panicked in his clumsiness.

A small glass vial bounces soundlessly to a rumpled mat and she stoops to retrieve it for him.

No bigger than the width of her smallest claw, inside a gritty grey liquid sealed in glass but the smell of it permeates and it's like a hammering blow to her nose and she nearly drops it.

It burns, straight to her lungs and she gives a short cough.

"Here—"

But she had spoken only to empty air.

Finigan quick steps are almost a run from the room and they hadn't even been dismissed for the day.

Cheetara trails after in almost a jog catching up easily.

"Finigan," she calls nearly shoving the item back into his hands, "You dropped this."

Startled his eyes widen to the point of bulging until they follow her raised hand, he swipes the vial so quickly Cheetara nearly misses the movement.

Shoving it into the pocket on his breeches his eyes grow shifty and conspiratorial looking around the room. "Thanks." He frowns contritely finally paying her a bit of a gaze.

There's something odd that stops her smile.

She doesn't see shining gold-green anymore in his eyes, only darkness and her reflection shines black in the inky pool of them.

His eyes are completely dilated.

In her twelves seasons she's never been fixed in such a gaze and before she has given her mind reason her body knots, fearful.

Her senses come to the conclusion before the cheetah herself consciously does: such an expression is one marked with an extremity of aggression or excitement, a challenging hunt or a cat facing a meal after a period of famine.

A signal before a killing blow.

It makes her stomach drop straight to her knees.

He looks blank but for the silent tell of a black gaze.

Cheetara hopes her unease isn't easily seen on her expression or smelled. "You're welcome."

Her only thought is to find a high cleric as her warning bells are blaring now.

Those eyes, that vial, the broken composure of the fishing cat, its all strange.

It happens as she turns away with only a step gained in distance.

"Agh!"

Her breath leaves her in a rush that is more like a pop with the force of her chest slamming into the mat and her vision speckles yellow and black.

A rumbling purr sounds beneath her ear and she's already knelt to gather her feet when Finigan's tongue runs up the length of her neck.

The cheetah is only frozen for an instant before hiking her leg backwards in what should be an injurious kick to Finigan, he yelps in pain but does not let go and her clawed feet rend holes in the mat beneath her to break free of him.

"Miss Cara!" Cheetara calls panic lacing her cry. The cheetah cub is taller but the fishing cat is much heavier and she worms against his grip like a defenseless cub forgetting her training in the cold wash of fear.

The cleric is there in an instant but it's high-cleric Theomar who arrives first easily hauling the cat from her and Finigan explodes in a rage of screaming growls and hisses roped and bound in the unyielding muscle of the leopard male's arms. Theomar hauls the cub backwards with a hardened brow and nod to Bali who follows with Finigan twisting and flopping like the fish his clan loved so, his fury louder.

Bali too has a gritty grey vial and its contents are dumped into a square of cloth, Finigan snaps sharp white fangs but Bali is quicker pressing it to Finigan's face. Finigan goes limp and is thrown over Theomar's shoulder and taken from the room.

Cheetara remains still but a close observer would note the shaking of her thin shoulders.

The room is still and quiet, but the expressions of the standing clerics round her seem understanding and grave exchanging mute speech Cheetara seems left in the dark of.

Cara extends a hand.

"Come, Cheetara to my ward."

Cheetara knows where they are going before the great doors are pulled open into the hall.

She's glad for the high-cleric's strong arms her legs are still trembling with adrenaline gaining her feet herself would have been nearly impossible.

She'd felt a touch of something, no more than a teeny trickle of thought through her fright but it had beckoned, beckoned for stillness. Calm.

Surrender.

Her mind had flickered beyond the fishing cat and floated to a pelt of blood orange and black stripes, to a prince of Thundera.

She's glad to be heading to the hospice ward she's in need of Cara's healing wisdom as she fears may be just as mad as Finigan.

The only indication of how long Cheetara sits in the hospice ward is the open window that shows the sky markedly hinting at brightness.

Nearly a half hour.

She waits watching the wind from the open window caress wood chimes on the desk, a scroll blotted with ink from where the writer had been careless. The sunlight dances green catching the light of colored jars containing herbs, powders and jellied remedies above the neatly arranged shelving of books.

The door clicks softly and Cara sweeps into the ward in black breeches and a long hooded tunic of sage, a uniform she donned in her duties as a healer.

"I apologize for leaving you for long, straining polluck leaves is a long process."

The cub doesn't get her meaning and Cara is suddenly aware she is not making sense. The healer momentarily forgetting her audience is a 12 year old cub who has no knowledge of polluck plants, nor why straining leaves for more for Finigan is important.

The plant the fishing cat had acquired and strained himself insufficient, improperly prepared but Cara had been impressed by his knowledge of treatment nonetheless.

"You are of 12 seasons yes?" Cara asks.

Cheetara nods bunching her hands in the corded leather of her wrist guards.

The cleric crosses the room coming to a shelf Cheetara had not noticed before just above her spotted head. Cara rifles through many rolled scrolls before finding the one she needs and carefully unrolls it.

She brushes a forelock of impossibly shiny bronze brown hair backward, combing it back with her claws into its place as she reads.

"You are so very young for this," she comments.

"Miss Cara?"

She knows the cub is asking for clarification, only natural.

Cara neatly rerolls the scroll observing the cheetah, Cheetara is ram rod straight fighting a slouch trying her best to look presentable for the cleric healer, the tugging of wrist guards has stopped but her hands are balled atop her thighs.

"I don't suppose it's surprising after going over the math, your clan, the cheetahs, are very small, like my own. You….mature much faster."

She's giving herself a headache trying to track the patterns of sexual development in the various clans of cubs in the clerisy.

Fifty three clerics. Thirty-five males, eighteen females including the high-cleric quarter guards. One of twelve seasons sitting upon a bench in Cara's ward, one male fishing cat of fifteen seasons experiencing an awakening, seven mostly males between nineteen and twenty one seasons, all others ranging between twenty five seasons and fifty seven with spry Bali surpassing all but Jaga himself. A motley mix of lions, leopards, margay, lynx, jaguar and many more.

Jaga had been more than accepting of any cat of high promise and dedication giving the clerisy a rounded defense, expertise in every area available.

However it presented a problem of predictability of incidents such as young Cheetara and Finigan who had not reported his condition.

"The jaguarundis, the servals, the margays, the fishing cats, the cheetahs," Cara says pointedly. "We are much smaller in numbers so it would seem the gods would only want to give us advantages, a way to survive." She unwinds a spool of bandage stretching a hand to Cheetara. "Your hand."

Cheetara offers her purpling wrist, the one she had used to try and catch herself in her fall. Firm, sure claws squeeze up her forearm until Cheetara hisses small canines clenched.

"Only a sprain," Cara announces relieved. "A lucky thing, cheetah bones are easily broken."

Cheetara's brows wrinkle as the caracal rubs a cold gel across the area, wrapping it to absorb. She seats herself on the bench close to the cheetah, taking in a deep breath to prepare.

"I'm going to ask you some questions and I want you to answer as truthfully as possible yes?"

The cub nods once with her chin higher as though squaring herself to brave something.

"Are you sleeping well?"

Cheetara nods once.

"How about eating? Are you eating well?"

Cheetara shakes her head.

"Just not hungry or nauseous?"

"Not hungry I think," Cheetara says with an air of uncertainty.

"Hot or dizzy?"

Cheetara eyes go rolling up in recall thinking on the past few nights she'd only been able to fall asleep at the edge of her window. "Just at night."

"Cheetara…have you noticed Finigan around your quarters lately?"

She shakes her head but Cara takes note of the flit of her eyes that contain an omission.

A secret.

A secret Cara is the wiser to, she'd more than once in the past seen the tiger prince slinking about the palace garden and some nights as she checks the perimeter wall she's sure it's the high shine of his eyes glowing green in the lamplit after dark near their lily pond before it's gone in a flickering blink.

A clever prince.

A possibly dangerous thing during this time in a she-cat's life.

Cheetara's words are almost a whisper. "Is Finigan sick?"

Cara smiles mildly at her, "No. But you will not be permitted to see him nor anyone else but myself and Miss Malyn for a few days' time."

The cub's mouth opens to protest before closing to numbly respond.

"Yes Miss Cara."

Seeing the hanging head of her young charge Cara explains. "You are not being punished that is a promise. But you must remain within your quarter's wing as with all clerics during their heat or awakening."

Cheetara has heard those words before in answer to a few absences in training, absences that tended to last many days.

Just weeks ago Liosha, a lion cleric of twenty seasons had not been present for nearly a week and she hears the bits of broken conversation, words that mean nothing but two are repeated enough to be filed for later mulling, _'heat'_, '_in season'_, and the sympathetic, understanding murmurs that follow amongst the older clerics.

She remembers only two days prior to Liosha's absence the she-cat taking to the vaulting obstable course, her slip and her fall more than thirty feet to the mat. The only real wound suffered pride dimming her blue eyes as she'd rubbed her sore foot.

She wonders at this and how this affects her and why she must be isolated but it isn't the most pressing thing she needs answers to.

"Why did Finigan attack me?"

Cara doesn't seem ready for the question pulling her eyes down to gather her thoughts. "What happened today must have been a bit frightening for you."

The cub doesn't answer but she's chewing at the inside of her cheek, something the caracal had observed the cheetah do when she'd felt self-conscious, seeking to conceal her anxiety.

"Finigan's intention was not to hurt you he was trying to mate with you."

Cheetara's small body stiffens with that same look she'd had pinned to her mat.

This word, this act Cheetara knows the meaning of.

"Finigan is…fresh in his awakening that means he has grown up and can now scent when she-cats are in heat. _You_ are in heat, it is a time when your body tells you it is ready for cubs, it is also telling males, like Finigan, you are ready for mating to produce cubs. You mustn't blame him males can find themselves driven to madness when your scent changes, especially when it is wholly new for them, they may do strange, often uncontrollable things in their excitement and means to distract them from you may be very hard on their minds and bodies. It is best for both of your conditions to run its course with rest for you and exercise for him."

"Should such an incident ever occur again forget your training only a bite or scratch will free you, it is the only thing they respond to in such a state. It is your refusal and it will be heeded."

Cara wonders at the cub's footed claws unsheathing if she will flee before the healer is finished.

"I assure you she-cats often find their heat much easier to tolerate than males around her. You may find yourself lucky with a phantom heat every once in a while, who can know? But for now you are 'presenting' which is much more common so you will be noticed by males around you, you might feel a bit feverish, dizzy, anxious, tired, uncoordinated or any mix of the sort for a while, you may even feel some discomfort even pain."

Cheetara's cheeks pink in embarrassment and Cara knows it is too much to add the cub may also feel need atop it all. A need that would only grow with each heat if not kept in strict isolation away from the influence of male hormones.

"It only comes twice a year for a mere eight days maximum but as I've said when it does you are to remain in your quarters unless escorted by myself or Malyn, your lessons will continue if you are well enough for it. An easier time with be made of your heat without males influencing physical reactions."

She's positive Cheetara would breeze through every cycle in the impregnable walls of their clerisy.

* * *

_Present day…_

She's in heat.

The need to crawl from her heated skin hadn't been enough to make her aware, nor her recently obsessive behavior when it came to the scent of Tygra, the touch of him and the idea of the taste of him, it's her mind coming apart that makes her aware.

Cheetara finds sleep well for the first time in weeks until she'd woken the next day well into the afternoon feeling that familiar sensation of her insides churning, like they had before with Tygra's claws sliding inside her and his mouth suckling at her pulse, at the peak of release but unlike then the sensations refuse to ebb or tip over today leaving only a painful throbbing sensation that worsens like teeth gnawing at her.

It's more than a powerful memory of the previous evening, this she's sure of when she's in the middle of a solo training exercise and her staff slips from her hands with a clatter, once, twice and six times in only several minutes and she's shaking so badly when she reaches to retrieve it she nearly misses.

She holds her palm out to the blue sky feeling a single rain drop touch her wrist.

It's warm.

It isn't rain, it's sweat.

She does mediocre staff work for hours and finds her rate of failure in the exercises only increases.

Sweeping her gaze around the camp she forces herself to calmly rake her claws through her tangled hair twisting the long mass of it before wringing the alarming amount of sweat from it and retreating to her tent.

Cheetara drifts into a restless sleep in only minutes into her mediation waking to the sensation of her body quivering.

She feels a steady trick of moisture as her womb flutters and she needs to find Tygra.

But she remains still wringing her hands round her staff as that flutter intensifies to a point of throb of pain.

The long slow inhale of breath breaks with a gasp.

Willing her heat away would not work.

But perhaps a long walk would help ease her symptoms.

Cheetara turns about in a circle, each tree looking the same.

She's sure she cannot even trust her sense of smell to lead her back to camp. Everything was wrong, confusing.

In all her heat cycles the cleric was sure she'd never been so affected.

She has the desperate thought to call out for Tygra, but quickly dismisses it; he was clearly unaware of her plight for now and should remain so, she'd have to explain herself and she will not allow it.

Besides she couldn't find sense in dragging him into her disorientation, ensnaring him into such a personal and private affair.

It wasn't proper for a cleric.

Cheetara doesn't have to guess at how things would unfold and her body still hums in recall of Tygra's attentions she's certain any control she has summoned would be lost finding herself panting and moaning underneath him before long.

She longs for him again and she cannot think of a worse time to have been touched, the freshness of it pulls at her will. Perhaps just once, perhaps if she was mated once she would be free to think again.

The thought of mating brings a hope of relief and and she's suddenly angry with herself in her momentary disregard of the consequences.

Kits. Cubs. Kittens.

The certainty of such actions giving her a cub.

Any mating during her heat was almost a 100% certainty even first time matings driven by heat resulted in cubs with nine of ten odds but the idea of Tygra's teeth set hard into her neck and his large, powerful body blanketing hers and his member thrusting deep has the effect of cold water dousing her fevered skin and fire being set upon it again.

She bites back a whimper as a jolt of arousal slams into her before swiftly mutating into knifing pain and the razored sensation drags heavy through her womb before beginning the fluttering again, floating her back to sweet ecstasy that teases like a knowing touch against her sex.

She catches a nearby oak in her claws before she staggers, digging harshly into the bark trying to anchor, to remain standing somehow because she's breathless and dizzy and her thighs sealed flush together does very little to help.

The cleric has long given up the rituals of peace and stillness because her mind refuses to clear or do much more than process pain and pleasure and the hint of impending insanity with the blending of them together.

The thought of days more sinks her into frustration and despair and she rends her claws so hard into the bark of the assaulted tree she's sure her hands are bloody.

She's writhing before she's aware of it her aching sex smashed brutally against the coarse bark of the tree, its bark lumped, sharp but her pleasure far outweighs her pain as she ruts.

It licks through her womb and she's trembling again for a far different reason and she works towards her release without finesse or grace unable to help thinking of the tiger that had only recently opened her eyes to such a beautiful thing.

Even as she climbs towards climax she knows it won't compare to being touched by Tygra.

The cheetah tears her claws free after allowing her shuddered exhale, she's sore and perhaps swollen but feels somewhat sated for the moment.

She isn't much of a swimmer but grabs her bag and staff heading to the river needing to clean herself and to soothe her brutalized sex.

Cheetara isn't sure how long she sits in the river, its cold enough to chill her lungs but it gives her the window of clarity to think.

It was nearly evening and she hadn't seen Tygra the whole day, which was no real cause for concern as evening was sure to have him back in her tent.

Her scent would call to him before long perhaps even Lion-O.

But at 17 seasons perhaps she is safe in dealing with her king. Lions were by far the latest typically to experience the call, perhaps Lion-O had not an awakening and she could pass quietly out of heat.

If not for Tygra.

At twenty seasons old Tygra was likely a male passed his awakening, she isn't sure when tigers peak but she'd guess early like her own clan considering the likely low populace of tigers, if there were any others at all.

She doesn't worry much on the general, sensibility and self-control was the mark of males beyond thirty-five seasons, she'd be of no interest.

Kat was far too young to have experienced an awakening of the senses, the subtlety of her scent change lost on a cub so young.

Keeping the tiger at arms length would have to be her focus for the next few days, perhaps a week's time to be safe. And an accidental nip could bring a well of blood or a licking of her essence on his paws after bringing her to climax; a taste of her on his tongue would only make things disasterous putting him in a similar state of delirium making avoiding mating impossible.

Her thoughts break in realization.

Tygra had already tasted her and nothing of consequence had occurred in fact Tygra had licked his paws clean of her and though clearly aroused he bared it well enough with no loss of self-control.

Perhaps her heat had come only with the arrival of the day, perhaps Tygra had not an awakening yet at all, perhaps tiger clans were even later than lions in awakening.

A phantom heat?

Possible and even likely.

She'd been feeling symptoms for hours and neither princes had sought her out, if she was experiencing a phantom heat she would not have a scent change at all to signal it, only a higher likelihood of pain.

The pain was definitely very new and the desire unbelievable.

She's convinced.

Relief makes her skin warm even with the slap of cool air as she emerges from the water.

She may be facing her condition alone but she is safe from a fate of a belly swelling with kits she is sure she isn't ready for, nor any bloodshed over mating rights.

And though her skin grows hot once more to signal her fever's return she no longer feels pain and thanks the gods for small favors.

* * *

_7 years ago…_

"I've always trusted your judgement Jaga but I have to wonder at what prompted this?"

The king, at his most trusted advisor and ally's askance, had come with Jaga to the palace's weapons chamber. The swords, spears, arrows and staffs are the usual sort he is used to but on a rolled canvas across the marble floors are more curious weapons of a cleric design, there are even two hooded clerics kneel next to them carefully arranging them and another two of Jaga's clerisy standing in waiting at the entrance of the chamber.

"Weapons and warfare I understand has lost Tygra's attention," Jaga starts. "If I recall correctly."

Claudus nods, he'd told the wizard as such days prior.

"And you came up with this? Tygra will be thrilled!" The king smiles really looking at the weapons neatly displayed, "I can only hope it holds his interest long enough. His love of swords seems to have soured, staffs, broadswords, archery the same. His whip is the only thing he seems to hold onto. I fear his stimulation isn't enough, he learns so fast it's difficult to keep his attention."

The old wizard is standing at the window looking out into the garden. "And much more so lately," he adds conversationally.

A tree of oranges rustles so minutely one would think a little bird playing amongst the fruit but an orange that is not a fruit but a pelt peeks through the foliage, climbing.

The overhanging branch bending lower and lower towards the ivory wall separating the palace from the clerisy.

The king mades a sound of agreement to Jaga's comment, massive arms folded in front of his chest.

"I suppose it is to be expected turning thirteen seasons can bring a lot of changes, he's growing like a reed you know, he towers over Lion-O and it seems to have happened in only a week."

There's a pride in the king, the statement is an exaggerated one but no one could deny Prince Tygra was maturing quickly.

"Lion-O will catch up in time," Jaga assures him. "I believe he's gained an inch or so himself this winter."

The smile the king gives is one unchecked in thought of his cubs.

"Yes, but I believe you've something more on your mind Jaga."

Jago tears his attention away from the open window with a raised white brow. "And what would have my king draw such a conclusion?"

"Well you've been staring out that window for quite a spell now."

Jaga's expression remains serene as he turns his full attention to Claudus even as Tygra teeters on the tree branch leaping onto the wall and into the cleric perimeter.

The head cleric remains unconcerned spotting a few of his clerics amongst the cleric yard.

The prince would not get far.

"Have I?"

Claudus expects the jaguar knows full well he has because Jaga despite his age was not a cat to have a mind that got lost in its wanderings.

"You have," the king humors.

"Prince Tygra was in the garden just a moment ago."

"He's usually there in the afternoons seems to be where he likes to clear his head."

"And now he is on the grounds of the clerisy." At the king's full attention Jaga continues, "as of late Prince Tygra seems to only desire taking to the trees to cross our wall."

The king no longer looks dismissive. "Tygra's been bothering your clerics? Odd, I've never known him to go prowling where he is not permitted."

"It can hardly be his fault Claudus, it is a difficult time in his life."

The king shakes his head, mouth set in a stern line. "No excuses for him my friend. What would possess him to do such a thing?"

Jaga knows the question is one without a clue to the answer the king is asking himself.

"I believe an awakening may be exactly what possesses him my lord. A she-cat cub in my clerisy seems to have captured his attention."

"An awakening, are you sure Jaga?"

"Quite certain. Luckily my sentry Cara has been watchful of him and of her. It would seem she has consumed his attention and he has shown all signs of intent to try and claim her."

At this information Claudus nods with a solemn look and something like sympathy.

"I hadn't thought it'd happen this soon. He's quite early."

Jaga nods and replies simply: "perhaps not so early for tiger clans."

"Yes," Claudus agrees, "we couldn't possibly know."

There is relief in the king in knowing Lion-O would likely be mated and bonded to a she-cat long before any need for worry as their clan did not often experience awakening until nearly twenty seasons.

But Tygra is who he worries for now, his son was already plagued with enough energy and power already at such a young age. For months he'd become sullen and moodier than usual as he grew into his long limbs and large paws, still a slender cub anyone could note the subtle shifting into heavier musculature, he would grow to be sizable.

"You mentioned his intentions to claim her, your cleric, how does she fare?" the King prods, curious as well about the female.

"Better now than yesterday, we had not noted the signs of awakening in another, she was unharmed but shaken in an aggressive pursuit."

A sound of claws ticking along the marbled floor of the northern hall catch both the king and old wizard's ear and suddenly there isn't a sound of feet at all and Tygra is all but scurrying by the entry obviously hoping not to be spotted.

"Tygra."

At the sound of his father's call the striped cub freezes. "Yes Father?"

The king simply motions with a big meaty claw and Tygra practically tiptoes forward with suspicious eyes shifting at the scattered clerics and Jaga, he looks his father square in the eye but the tell of his ears shifting backward let the two cats know where his feet want to go.

The king's hands practically swallow his cub's own when he picks Tygra's up from hanging at his sides, noting the purpling redness beneath his claws and large slivers of wood, bits of dried blood are obvious in the beds of them.

"What happened here?"

Tygra fidgets in a subtle gesture meant to secure his paw away but the king is having none of it examining the flesh that flames brightly under the cub's white fur.

"Climbing," Tygra explains in nearly a mumble again those round eyes sweep over to Jaga as though expecting the old wizard to interject, to somehow know.

Jaga says nothing nor breaks the nervy cub's gaze though his blue eyes are calm and kind.

"Scarlet criers?" his father wonders his tone already preparing to be scolding.

Tygra shakes his head, shrugging, "just oaks mostly, got bored."

The lie comes so easily and Jaga is sure it isn't missed by the king either, Tygra wasn't the type to take to climbing trees until his hands bled, he was a smarter cub than to give into obsessive habits if they could be helped.

_If _they could indeed be helped.

Tygra had clearly climbed the trees of the garden over and over and over again hundreds of times in a compulsive search seeking the cleric.

The king releases his son's hand before the lion notes something else, before Tygra knows it his head is clasped gently between his father's paws and when those eyes go wider and rounder in startled surprise the king gets a clear look.

All the color of young Tygra's iris seems swallowed, leaving only blackness in their extreme dilation and it's all the affirmation Claudus needs, he notes the jittered way the cub curls and uncurls his fist in a show of claws, highly agitated.

"I want you to get those paws cleaned up with the healer and this cut," the king said gesturing to the red wound running parallel to the tiger's cheekbone.

"Yes Father," Tygra nods obediently.

The tiger's head is released and still his fur stands prickled as though preparing for a fight as the usually still, disciplined cat shuffles his feet still rooted as he has not been dismissed, he's nearly dancing in place itching for leave of the chamber.

"Off you go," his father simply says with a wave of his hand.

Once the steps of the tiger are out of earshot Claudus speaks once more.

"Already so far gone, I'll arrange for his weapons work and combat training to increase as much as he can stand." Claudus can't get those black eyes out of his head and he's sure Tygra's mild temper will not last

"And more," he decides. "It's going to be a hard time for him, best we can do is keep his blood from boiling by spending that energy at least until the female is no longer receptive. He will not take well to being restricted from her."

"They never do."

The king looks troubled and a frown is beginning to deepen with his quiet. He knows all too well what awakening males were like, fiery and prone to aggression and violence, even with rigorous physical activity. And black eyed expressions were beyond dangerous and if mating didn't occur someone was bound to be hurt in the male's frustration.

"We can expect some measure of control to be found in time," Jaga assures the pensive king. A withered hand touchs the lion's shoulder. "Do not trouble yourself."

"Satisfy a curiosity for me old friend, the she-cat, her clan?"

"A cheetah a bit younger than he, prideful and stubborn," Jaga says fondly.

Claudus shares a smile with the old cat before sighing, "a pity."

Cleric or not he had a brief hope of a tigress, though she'd have been bound to cleric duty he had still grow hopeful Tygra's instincts would find him a match.

But no, Tygra would remain the first tiger spotted in nearly fifty years.

And his heart dwells on a striped cub who was probably alone in the world.

* * *

Present day...

It's midday when Cheetara arrives back at camp, its no longer empty, the kits have returned from whatever mischief of the day they've managed and Panthro looks busy inside the thundertank fiddling with some odd cylinder from the tank's overhead compartment.

She spots Tygra sitting under an oak far upstream a few yards of Lion-o standing at the river's edge.

Her king gives her a side-eyed look before commenting, "Was just starting to think you got lost out there."

She's a bit put off by the way Lion-O seems so dismissive dispute his comment.

"Of course not I just wanted to wash the grit from everything," she says indicating her bag which she sets neatly at the edge of her tent. "Hope you didn't worry."

Lion-O shrugs, "none of my business."

The nonchalant reply leaks bitterness and she suspects his soreness is a spillover of their last conversation of tents that ended with Lion-O and Tygra seething in a power struggle.

It occurs to her she has not done as she resolved to do in speaking with either about it.

The debate of whether to follow after her king or not is made up by Tygra.

"Leave him, not our problem if he wants to pout like a child for days at a time."

"A slightly better alternative than pretending things aren't different now and nothing's wrong," Cheetara adds.

She takes to the long grasses downhill from camp he follows grumbling.

"Nothing _is _wrong, he's right it's not of his business."

Cheetara sighs; she's much too weary to play middle cat with the two princes, especially a tiger who's determined not to care two licks about Lion-O's attitude towards them.

Or maybe not.

He stops their walk finding them as least half a mile from camp almost hidden in the tall grass, he chances a glance expecting disappointment finally getting a good look at her, she's clearly exhausted. She smells like rain, no its the river, and her usual sweet scent and something faint that's sharp and biting, like a slip of orange or lemon.

Her stippled blonde tresses are damp and tangled, perhaps from a swim.

His large hands rest against her forehead sweeping down her cheek and she leans closer and he can tell it is an unconscious movement.

"Are you okay?" he decides is the best question. "You look a little…

"Yes, I just—I'm a bit tired."

His hand soothes against her cheek petting softly. "You should rest then you feel warm."

"I'm fine, besides I've slept half the afternoon already."

There's a toothy pleased grin at that goes crooked making Tygra's expression shift from suggestive to downright carnal. "Well something must have left you completely exhausted."

She's stuck in that expression and his ears pick up her flying pulse.

He pulses too, surprised at how readily he responds to her now.

There's a quiet to indication a sudden mood shift into more intimate, secret things and Tygra's sweeping her damp hair away to fall past one shoulder.

He's moving slowly to allow her any objection but he needs to touch her.

Tygra leans closer for another pull of her scent and his nose finds her pulse only half a second before his tongue playing on a tiny spot behind her ear.

"Tygra," she sighs.

Cheetara slips away and there's an apology in her eyes for her aloofness.

"I'm sorry, I…"

Perhaps she is overwhelmed? Seeking some distance after their racy encounter?

Was it too much for the cleric?

The distance between them is palpable as well as visible and he doesn't like that she seems to have put herself out of his reach purposefully.

He can take a hint.

"It's okay I get it." Even to his ears he sounds put out.

He'd managed all day to not pursue her as they often spent some hours of the day apart and that had been more difficult than anything he'd ever done, especially after the touch and taste of her still burned in his mind.

He'd been licking at his paws on a strange impulse all day even after a long morning wash in the river. He'd managed distance but found himself unable to focus on anything throughout the day but the idea of getting her panting beneath him.

And now that she stands feet away he wonders if his raging hormones are that obvious.

Obviously as she's wrapped her arms round herself in a protective gesture.

But he's been _throbbing_ for her all day to the point of pain.

She'd been so pretty and sweet and willing and his.

He wants her badly.

But she has that expression again that definitely unease and he's ashamed of himself.

Tygra moves to dismiss himself only to find her staff blocking his movement.

Cheetara raises a mischievous bow. She twists the weapon in a complex spin of movement, challenging him and with it offering a negotiation.

Ah, so sparring, they _were_ a bit overdue.

"Weapons?" he asks.

At this Cheetara sets aside her staff eyeing his left side meaningfully.

He too puts aside his whip grinning deviously, he may very well get trounced in a fight with the cleric but he's sure he can at least get his hands on her once or twice. The bruises resulting mean nothing and in an odd way he looks forward to them.

She's made him a masochist.

His eyes are wide open when she attacks dropping to sweep his legs out beneath him, her speed making the attack impossible to thwart.

"Eyes open," she teases tapping one finger underneath hers.

"Well you didn't say go," he replies smoothly. "What can you expect from a cheetah though?"

Egging her was an old game of his and when he climbs to his feet she strikes him square in the chest with an open-palm quick strike and a kick to his side it's measure just enough to rattle his balance but not cause any real harm.

She's dancing out of his reach long before he can react.

"Much more than tigers obviously, all talk and no action."

Cheetara moves to strike again he manages to block the blow with a forearm thrusting it against her palm in a push, she falls backward hard grimacing.

"Sorry, you okay?" Tygra comes kneeling to see to her.

She doesn't understand.

It had been a mild hit that shouldn't have taken her from her feet but she's lying flat in the long grasses just the same.

Her head feels dizzied and far away.

He'd struck her with less than half the usual force in sparring, it had been completely playful and she's sure even Kat could have kept his feet.

A cleric should _never_ have been taken down so easily.

Sometimes burns in her belly and heats her cheeks. She'd never felt so _weak_.

"Didn't mean to hurt you."

His concern just makes it worse, because he's unguarded for an attack, unthreatened by her, coming to gather her into his arms like delicate she-cat needing rescue from barely a nudge that crumples her like a paper doll.

Though her fall would likely leave a bruise as pain sprouts from hip to knee she comes to her feet forcing her weight to the injured side, instead of muffling as she'd hoped the pain goes full bloom.

It begins in tandem with the fluttering, the return of that deep sensual tickle that mocks her.

The absence of pain, the loss of pleasure both come blaring back to life awaiting to nudge her towards true completion.

Tygra sees her eyes go wide as a small wince escapes her.

"Chee-

"I'm fine," she says but it's overly loud.

Desperate.

There isn't an objection made because she's attacking with a sequence of blows but he isn't countering only blocking and slipping past what he can, he's more occupied with observing her.

She's trying not to pant and blinking as though dazed and her fast moving blows are slowing.

He finally snaps two hands out catching her wrists a movement that should not be possible, she's trembling so much.

When he has her eye to eye something desperate flickers through them. "What's wrong?"

Too close. He's much too close.

His grip loosens again opening himself for an attack to hold her more gently and her muscles give a hint of relaxing.

He has no longer a will to play this game as he's sure he's playing another that he isn't sure of the rules.

Something is terribly wrong.

A reply is stuck in her throat, a physical lump that blocks breath from coming, just a single word she cannot manage to utter: please.

She has to win, to gain distance now.

Cheetara plants a foot into his chest kicking hard, as she'd hoped his hold breaks but he hooks an unguarded calf by his own leg.

Before they've hit the ground she's on top the impact slapping their bodies together and she gives a sharp cry that is definitely pain.

But when he makes to seize her she _hisses_, a throaty angry sound he's never heard her make before, only the more pleasant variations.

It proves difficult to hold onto her and he's grown tired and frustrated himself at her evasion, he needs this game over, she isn't acting herself.

He does the only thing he can think of and she's stuck.

Tygra's practically sitting on her, his weight many times her own pinning her slight waist to where Cheetara finds her best efforts to wriggle do nothing to even inch him and Tygra dispassionately turns his gaze slightly behind him to watch her kick nothing but empty air.

"Guess I win."

She wants to protest his unfair tactics, sitting on her hardly seems fair, he has to know she has not a chance of ever setting herself free as heavy as he is without any leverage and the effort of it is leaving her breathless and when she moves to deliver an open palmed punch to his unguarded torso he's quick as a snake to intercept her hand and then the other.

Once he has both wrists he wastes no time twisting them up above her head pinning them there.

"And since I do win I guess you'll have to talk to me. Tell me what's wrong."

She bucks hard unwilling to surrender and one leg comes free from under his knee.

He doesn't understand and she absolutely can't tell him, she doesn't care that she's panicking in the trap she has created herself because she just wants to do as her heat bids so bad.

She can't move at all now he has her freed leg recaptured and caught against his hip.

He swallows harshly as he suddenly feels warm, hot even like being submerged in warm, warm water and caressed as he finally gets a good whiff of her scent.

Past the clean scent of the river, mixing with her usual scent, that sweet tart smell is stronger and it occurs to him it is responsible for the way his mouth watered and tingled before. He'd tasted only a small sample of it the previous evening.

She freezes. Feeling Tygra, _hot _and twitching against her the v of her open thighs and his brown eyes cloud and darken with a predatory intent and his claws go slipping out unsheathed against her ribs.

By the way his nostrils flare he's finally noticed.

So she _is _presenting, she's not experiencing a phantom heat at all.

And worse she knows that look, Tygra is completely gone in the rapture of her smell, captivated, irises disappearing.

The far look as he starts to throb against her belly tells her he has every intention to claim her.

It's only an inch or so of free space under him but its enough room to escape, thrusting herself up to twist round and crawl out from under him in a smooth quick maneuver. She's crawling forward when Tygra has her again, wrapping an arm just under her waist round the front of her thighs and locking them in his grip.

She's dragged backwards, the few scant inches she had managed lost; she digs her claws into the dirt shifting to kick backwards when Tygra grips her harder.

Her teeth won't find him in her position nor her claws.

Cheetara is thrown back into a memory of nearly a decade ago being captured in the grip of another male and she isn't half as afraid as before, she feeling almost sedate, even when she feels warm breath across her rump.

Tygra feels as though he's floating tracing his nose along the inside of one slender, lovely thigh to the source of his desire.

It's a shot of heaven.

It's too much, the scent of her dancing round his nose and his hunger for another taste can't be denied any longer.

Cool air skims her exposed thighs and her breeches momentarily bind her ankles before she falls forward with the force of them being yanked again to rest round her knees, the tough material holding well under the assault of Tygra's strength.

Her sex glistens before him pink flesh tipping more towards an angry red color making it look all the more tender and in need of attention.

The tiger's mouth is hot and wet between her legs, his tongue gentle rasping across her swollen sex. She wants to sob in relief as his tongue caresses away the hurt of abrasions.

A pressure builds as he adjusts to an open-mouthed kiss against her most intimate place, tongue and lips dragging slow to collect her moisture.

Cheetara kicks and bucks and thrashes her claws filling with grass and dirt but she's locked as he feasts forcing her to meet head on the intensity of pleasure, when she grows weak and tired of fighting his claws brush the top of one buttock possessively claiming victory.

Her heart flurries beneath her chest like a little bird pressed in the cool grass and she concentrates on breathing and that gets harder because she can feel him licking, kissing and drinking in her wetness and the noises he makes of obvious and depraved enjoyment has her head spinning.

The cleric is sure the intensity of it has blinded her and it takes minutes for her to realize the moans and shrieking breaths are coming from her.

He's answering her cries with purrs that sound garbled as he swallows her essence.

She surrenders when the sedate feeling hits her again her panic leaving her quietly.

Tygra groans like someone eating for the first time in days and the sound pulsates through her and dropping her quaking arms she offers him more by tilting her spotted backside up and her balance becomes better so she rocks backward.

Cheetara is sure she's been blinded, her vision colored in yellow starlight as his tongue slithers past her clinching walls.

His claws drag again along her, leaving red scratchs along one spotted cheek and in clenching her backside she squeezes the tongue within her more tightly and she nearly cries.

Teeth follow as his canines sink into the muscle of her scratched flesh.

The sharp shock is enough to bring her sanity forward.

Cheetara lashes out her claws catching Tygra's shoulder, he growls spitting mad but it doesn't last as the brown of his eyes return as he blinks, panting.

He has to look around for a moment to gain his bearings before both are forced with only each other.

Tygra is the first to gain breath, his throat bobbing with a swallow. "You-you're in heat."

She's not sure why she expects anger or accusation but his words are simply a trembling recognization.

Cheetara remains where she's fallen, hair mussed and sweat sheening her, she does arch her hips up to pull up her breeches avoiding eye contact and Tygra has to tear his eyes away at her beautiful thighs and well pleasured sex disappearing from his view.

"Yes," she agrees smally.

He continues to pant for a moment then his tongue flicks out over his lips and her taste lingers. It is much stronger, sweeter and tarter than the night before. "I thought maybe but I wasn't sure, I didn't-."

Tygra flounders for an explanation, she understands, they've both underestimated the pull in their instincts, the sneaky way it stole logic.

She follows his eyes movement to how they rove over her and she knows distraction is necessary for both of them.

He's trembling like her in a strange withdraw of their incomplete act.

"I'm sorry, I thought maybe you wouldn't know, hadn't guessed, I've been undetected before."

"Never by me," he tells her gravely.

Cheetara looks stunned at his confession, over the years she'd seen him afar a few times, sometimes in the palace garden, other times in the cleric yard but it'd never occurred to her the times he dared brave the yard she'd be in season and he was seeking her for mating.

"You didn't say anything," she says.

Tygra shakes his head, "We were cubs, I definitely didn't think confessing wanting to mate with you would gain me any points. Besides, when did you figure the best time for me to bring up obsessedly aching with the scent of you would have been?"

Tygra licks at the corner of his mouth again, his eyes squeezed shut in the intensity of her taste. She knows he isn't doing it consciously but his licking has her ready again despite her despair at their situation.

He's tasted her in full heat. Her pheromones were strong enough to kick his blood into a frenzy, it could take days but Tygra was not any different than any other male cat in that sense, triggering the hind brain. Sex, violence and a need for possession would beat away all sense of civility in time.

He's going to suffer as much as she.

He's suffering now.

She means to just slip her hand along his jaw and tell him to breath through the swelling of nerves but her flesh is stronger and he eagerly opens his mouth to her tongue against his lips for a kiss.

Its out of control in seconds her mind goes pleasantly fuzzy again, she climbs his lap for more contact and his claws sink holes into her clothing pressing her harder to him, her scratches throbbing against the warmth of his hands both trying their best to swallow the others groans.

She moans, this time she is pained, her cries plaintive.

Her distress is enough to break his cloud of pleasure at the same time their mouths part.

He releases her buttocks to wind one hand to her back and the other to the nape of her neck, she's pushing away making those noises of pain attempting to separate their lower bodies.

He's careful setting her prone on her back not sure of what to do for her.

Cheetara feels as though she's been lying on her back suffocating for hours but Tygra is still sitting next to her stroking her hair and even her short blow brows creased in distress.

She needs release and she laments she hadn't let him finish.

He lays a soft kiss just behind her ear and she feels her breeches being slipped from her hips and his touch petting the silk of her belly for a few moments and she can feel the corners of eyes leaking as he coaxes her legs apart.

A kiss is placed on each of her lids tasting the salt of tears that refuse to spill before he takes a look.

Her delicate sex is dark, swollen with blood engorging it.

It's not a wonder moving against her was painful, too much friction.

"Let me help, I know it hurts."

Cheetara nods her belly quivering.

"Shh," he whispers against her belly before kissing it.

She wants to cry for a different reason than pain when his tongue finds her slit again knowing just how to relieve her.

For now.


	3. And What Was Inside

Finally another chapter for you greedy fans lol, seriously thanks for the support you've all been wonderful. This tale is dedicated to lookforme, without her it would never have gotten written, special thanks to Philliwolf as well for the constant nagging. Lotor, Luna and fuuko I didn't forget you, and my dear reviewers thanks for the encouragement. Buckle up things are about to get messy and dark and smutty, don't say I didn't warn you!

* * *

**AND WHAT WAS INSIDE...**

_7 years ago..._

His role is a simple one, grueling exercises in weaponless sparring to give the cub prince an outlet for excess energy during his awakening, to coax him into spending pent up aggression that would eventually leave him too worn to engage in fighting or seeking a mate.

It must be repeated daily for the week they are affected as cub's recovered quickly through the pain and fatigue and morning would find many cubs raging over something as simple as saying good morning, stuck in the state of a haze.

It is during a haze, when fury or want reaches its extreme a male is most dangerous and common for male cubs to remember nothing while in it, eyes going dark in conjunction with the mind going somewhere else.

In time most cubs would gain a measure of control, becoming cats that still felt the spell of a she-cat in heat but was not a slave to it.

"Come little prince, you can do better than that. All that fire in you and you're giving me smoke. I expected better."

The cub blinks at the sting of sweat in his eyes and there isn't a place on his body that isn't screaming in pain.

The General circles him in a sort of ambling way, unconcerned of any attack, the hulking cat seems bored and while the cub is wet with perspiration Grune remains unruffled and unperturbed.

Tygra follows the cat with brown eyes that feel too large and stinging, a head rush beginning, growing in his agitation with Grune.

He can feel the edges of his control cracking and bleeding out a maelstrom of emotions.

He feels sick, tired but more than that he feels anger like fire from his head to his toes and the confusion and a dizziness similar to the time he tasted milkweed.

Tygra launches himself with fists and feet the General is ready for, deflecting every move with ease and landing a punishing blow each time for the tiger's efforts.

When Tygra lands on his back hard he's sure his body is broken, pain blaring from his tailbone and leaving his body tingling in aftershock.

He wants to sleep so badly but he boils, he boils all over with rage, agitation and anxiety.

The blow is enough to knock him completely senseless and his ears ring so loudly he's sure he hears the bells of the guard tower knocking back and forth in his skull.

Tygra gives a harsh cough, spitting at the taste of iron as he fixes his opponent in a look that promises murder. A trail of blood dribbles from the cub's mouth to form a puddle on the polished marble of the training center.

General Grune only grins.

Tygra hasn't gained his feet in minutes, rocking on shaking hands and knees before simply collapsing, gaping for air like a fish on his back.

Apparently the tiger prince's teachers had struggled at such a simple task.

He's impressed it has taken this long, he's batted the tiger prince around for nearly an hour before this collapse.

It's perfect.

Tygra had been easy enough to push to extreme fatigue the cub too excitable for his own good.

The hulking sabertooth nudges the striped prince with his foot and it seems to renew some life into the striped prince who's growl bubbles in his chest.

It's a warning that only amuses the general. The cub is spent and broken.

Still he's sure there's fun to be had with the cub.

The general scans the room briefly and glee fills him to find they are still alone.

He kneels level to the struggling prince till he's close enough to cub's ear. He doesn't want the cub to miss a single word.

"I'll bet she's a pretty little thing huh? Sweet and soft," he mocks. "She's got to be special, got you all hungry for a taste of her."

Tygra's only reaction is a flexing of his hands, claws leaving their sheaths and his gaze immediately washes black and empty and Grune is pleased to have his undivided attention.

"And when she's all ripe and ready for the taking like the sword they'll give her to precious baby brother."

He can hear it literally stirring, bubbling, boiling though the cub simply snarls.

"And he'll eagerly take her, like everything else that belongs to you."

Grune pauses just to note his words have triggered the primitive brain well enough that Tygra has progressed quickly back up to a rage, even as his body asks for rest.

"Perhaps they'll be generous and allow this old saber a taste as well."

The force of the cub's spring is enough to land Grune flat and he bellows in pain of teeth and claws ripping into him and tearing at him.

The commotion of Tygra raging is what brings company. It takes four guards to peel the cub from the general and he rages on in a fit of claws and teeth, blood foaming his mouth.

In a wild state of delirium.

Grune finds himself fighting a grin that could betray him.

The cub is quite the fireball.

"What happened?" Lord Claudus demands.

Grune comes to his feet eyeing thoughtfully the blood staining his forearm, where the cub has bitten. "The prince just got the best of me for a moment, quite the virile son you have my Lord."

Tygra lunges clear out of the grips of the guards only to be intercepted by the king who has an easier time of it but not an effortless one. His son is relentless and its clear the wily cub will not calm, cannot calm.

Roaring himself raw.

"Tygra," the king tries.

His son is nearly choking on breath making his rasping growling sound like choking.

Tygra is blind and deaf in his anger to anything but killing the large sabered cat.

"My Lord, let me."

The caracal healer holds carefully her pointed instrument, a bamboo reed stained with a green fluid. The king understands but Tygra is fighting much too hard for neck delivery.

"His hip my Lord," Cara suggests.

That is easier as the cubs limbs are locked well enough by the King's hands.

Cara tugs just an inch or so the prince's clothing to find the muscle of a buttock and Tygra's snarl seems to be one of indignation before immediately letting out a coughing exhale.

"My Lord if you can he'll need to be flat on his side."

It takes a moment for King Claudus to react, his son is making a pitiful wheeze of noise and he feels cold.

"What was that?" the King asks.

Cara coos sweetly to the struggling cub, petting a forelock of his fuzzy mane to ease his distress.

"Foxfoot, he may become nauseous in a moment," Cara warns. "And a bit chilly, it can drop his temperature when it first hits the bloodstream."

Tygra's small paws are like ice but the rough wheezing isn't as desperate. "It's a poor substitute for polluck," the King frowns. "His body is going through enough without foxfoot, he's only a cub."

"Forgive me my Lord but I did not see polluck helping him much. Prince Tygra was on the edge of delirium, very close to overwhelming his body into a shutdown."

"It's his awakening," Claudus explains, knowing already it is probably clear to the healer. "He's been fine with the increased activity for nearly a week."

The cub hacks and hacks and there's a wet gurgling noise just before the cub vomits. A portly little bobcat is quick with a wash bucket, a square of wash cloth pressed to the mess and another clean soft cotton square over the corner of the cub's mouth.

She wears a dark blue blend of cotton linen skirts and smells of lavender, the mark of a palace maid and the small gold emblem of a personal attendee across her left breast, further establishing her as a personal assistant to a young prince.

"Thank you Katill," the King addresses the maid.

Katill nods seeing the prince in the hands of the healer and goes about attending to the sick on the floor but her small grey eyes check often on the prince and her scrubbing seems to take a bit more time than necessary.

Tygra coughs and begins to retch in dry heaves.

"Something must have been different today, I've only ever seen a reaction like that a handful of occasions, triggered by mental duress usually, something that felt to Tygra like intense provocation."

The general has said nothing during her exchange with the King nor seemed overly concerned of Tygra's state is the thought that taps at Cara. The cub had been in serious trouble and she had only caught his eyes a moment but she swears she sees amusement thinly hidden in them.

The prince blinking wearily and finally drifting to sleep is what returns her attention to him.

The king sighs in obvious relief. "Tygra is a stronger and wilder cub than most and with his awakening his teachers have all needed a bit of time to recover, General Grune has been kind enough to continue with Tygra for the time being."

"Then I suppose this question is for you General. Have you not noted any odd changes in Tygra's state of awakening?"

The cleric's tone is a light question that isn't at all accusing but Grune is no fool and those large golden eyes of the caracal are distrustful of him.

He thinks it wise.

"I can't say I have, as my Lord has mentioned the prince has always been wily. It may be common for tiger cubs to be a bit more savage, who could possibly know."

Those golden eyes give the teeniest twitch of movement and he has a thought of what the pretty little cleric would look like with his claws wrapped around her beautiful neck, what it would sound like snapped in his grip.

"With your permission my Lord I could tend to the prince in his chambers better, I'm sure a bed would be welcome given his day."

By the kings beckoning the Prince is gingerly lifted and taken from the throne room.

"Nonsense, I couldn't take you from Jaga's clerisy even for the afternoon, I will alert the palace healer for Prince Tygra to continue his treatment."

"Please my Lord my teacher would most assuredly not mind my absence for the afternoon, especially in regards to one of the princes."

The king's weary look lightens a bit, "if you are certain Jaga will not lament your absence…"

Cara nods. "Thank you my King." She gives a low bow, but like a cat spotting prey in its gaze her pupils sharpen with only the slightest glance Grune's direction before she leaves.

"Thank you General Grune for your efforts you'll have to forgive prince Tygra, he meant none of it. He's fond of you you know."

And likely to remain that way, having such a poor memory recall in awakening was wonderful. Tygra's hatred of the General gone as quickly as it had come and likely to return in the next session.

He does find himself so bored these days…

The sabered cat is all understanding mild nods. "Of course, and I of him, do send for me my Lord when he is well, there's nothing I would want more than to help him through this."

The king nods, "I guarantee I will General, thank you."

* * *

_Present day…_

Cheetara blinks with the realization of her pain ebbing to a tolerable level and her pleasure comes sudden and hard when Tygra's tongue grazes her in a teasing lick.

Her breath catches in this little startled gasp.

Cheetara's looking at him, like a particularly beautiful bird, broken winged and splayed on her back, peering over her still covered breasts at the tiger settled between her thighs, his mouth brushing over pink edges of her seam, such pink glistening flesh opening coyly from beneath the trail of stark white pelt covering her womanhood.

The prince's large hands comes to trail one fluttering thigh, reassuring and encouraging the limb to relax as it is not at rest but holds the same active stillness as a band of rubber stretched long and held there.

His offer is clear from his whispered reassurances and she's relieved, so relieved and so in need and she'd be uttering a prayer of one word: please, please, please, if she wasn't focused so hard on breathing through the sensations.

She's fighting to relax, to surrender beneath him.

She's turned a beautiful rosy pink color, meek and nervous but he has heard the way her heart frenzies in its pace and seen the way she shivers with need. "Tygra, you can't, you shouldn't…"

Tygra pays her words not much mind, a press of his lips again on her sex with the tease of a tongue and her taste is like coming home after years away.

Cheetara tries to quiet her whimper as pain throbs at her, but Tygra doesn't miss it.

"Relax," he purrs, honeyed and soothing. "Not going to hurt you." He finds her ear hidden in her mess of blonde hair and whispers. "Trust me, no teeth this time."

He can see a protest forming over her kiss swollen lips but her eyes darken arrested by his words and she immediately goes slack.

That spotted thigh finally settles flush on the cushion of grasses and open and his nose brushes over her mound scenting her.

He knows something instinctively from her scent, something all male cats recognized from the scent of their chosen in heat.

She's not ready, not completely for mating it would be days before the perfect time to mate but it does nothing to quell the urge, it does nothing to stop a need to taste her, scent her over and over and be one with her right now.

Her middle is all sunken with the force of her sucking in breath and her head pulling back to tangle in the burrs, twisting her spine into a lovely arch, he's able to count the shadow of every rib.

His tongue draws hot across her from navel to beneath her breast before descending down her with eager kisses. He's leaving prickles of moisture from laborious breaths as he goes, his excitement climbing with hers.

He finds himself unable to stop greedily sampling the rest of her exposed flesh, a detour in his duty to temporarily aid her, he'd feel guilty if not for the pleasured noise coming from the cleric.

Cheetara, he concludes, for all her reserved nature is a she-cat that becomes nearly musical at an intimate touch, her pleasure becoming soft, sweet breathy things peppered with high, sharp gasps. He's looking for the ever rare low groan he's only heard twice before that he's learned makes her bite her bottom lip and pitch herself in an impression curve that makes her nipples pebbling through her uniform clearly visible.

He's already torturously aroused but that moment nearly undoes him.

"You're so beautiful," he murmurs against her navel. He nips underneath it and there it is.

That sound that low groan, that nipping of her lip with her teeth.

It's a hair trigger.

Tygra becomes aware of the edge he dances on when a prickling sensation begins and he's hard and twitching painfully. The drag of the invisible knife sharpening in his gut.

He has her, tangling their tongues and nudging her legs even farther apart.

With their kiss still dizzying her she isn't nearly prepared for his tongue snaking around inside her sparking little flames up into her belly that will fast become fire.

Its torture, far worse in ways than the pain. She climbs and climbs and climbs only to face the edge unable to fall, his clever tongue will not allow it.

His cleric lies ready and willing on an altar of pleasure, he wishes her cradled around fine silks and satins in his bed, in a palace that no longer exists, but seeing her cradled in the wildness of the brush has its own appeal.

"More?"

He looks feral and hungry, she's never seen him look so intent on her that way, like a meal. Like he doesn't know whether to eat her or mate with her.

Its perhaps a good idea to stop their tumble down into depravity but her tongue feels like paper, the look of her prince, the scent of him, it is impossible to ignore the call of it.

But she has to.

She shakes her head trying to clear the confusion. "I—

She's interrupted by a sensation like a hammer in her gut.

Tygra's hands are there applying gentle pressure to her navel and the lightest touch of a thumb circling the hood of her clit.

Her relief is instant and the quality of her gasps returns to a soft husky pleasured sound.

"You were saying?" Tygra murmurs.

He's distracted by the slow circling of his thumb against her wet flesh.

He's waiting her answer and she wishes she didn't even look, because he's panting like her and licking at the sheen of moisture on his lips, brown eyes becoming the color of fire and ash and peppering to black boring into her from between her legs.

She should be afraid of those eyes, that slip away from civility, but she only tips her hips offering herself with black lashes dipping in a perfect show of desperate beseeching.

"Please."

The silken glide of his tongue resumes worshipping her, a pause, a kiss of her navel, her thighs and back to his goal.

She'd heard of the tasting of one another during mating, but it doesn't seem the right word for Tygra's attentions it's somehow inadequate. He drinks of her yes and is greedy in it, her scent bewitching him the way she'd heard it could, his nose puffing air across her folds and a reverent kiss to the flesh of them and raking of his tongue grooming the light covering of white pelt around his prize, long flat strokes occasionally brushing that nub where pleasure was piercing.

He's doing more than tasting, she's being _kissed_ there as tenderly and sweetly as if it were their mouths were joining in a familiar embrace of trust and love and then passionately, wet, swirling, his mouth becoming well acquainted with every bit of her.

And with her passion rising, her eyes shut and tremors raking her tiny form, Tygra slips inside her a careful claw to finish her and meets her crying mouth with a brush of lips, a tart sharp favor to his kiss that must be from her.

She climaxes with a little grunt, hips flexing against his fingers, never breaking their kiss.

"Better?" he asks much later.

"Yes," she says the surprise evident in her voice.

Her deep gulping inhale only draws his attention to her long, long legs when she shifts drawing one across the other hiding her nakedness from him but the curve of her rump becomes his next focus and the wound of his bite is visible, forming dark red holes.

He clearly startles her when his hand lightly pauses over the wound, the wound that's still sticky with blood, she doesn't react more than that long line of muscle contracting.

"Did I mention I was sorry about this?" Tygra remarks lamely.

"You didn't but it's alright." She assesses the wound as best she can craning her neck round and thinks it may need to be dressed, it is deep and throbs steadily. "It's a clean mark, it should heal well."

She's right it's definitely a mark, neat holes without a sign of tearing the flesh and deep enough into the muscle a small scar would form, marring her forever.

He's still in disbelief of it himself and more than that the urge to give her a matching set of marks on the other buttock is overwhelming. "I'm sorry I didn't have any right to do that."

"You can hardly help doing what my heat beckons, what your body beckons. And you are wrong you have every right to do such a thing."

It is not the answer he expects. The prince's brows knit. "I do?"

Cheetara nods firmly forgetting her injury to give his confusion her full attention and reassurance. "I'm yours Tygra, I've always been yours. I've wanted to be yours completely for a long time. But…"

Her last sentence is quiet and shy he's suddenly aware of how cruel this whole thing is.

She doesn't have to say it, he knows it will have to wait, she'd be expecting a cub before the spring, well before they were ready for it. And if his traitorous desire has anything to do with it he'd try for many kits with her.

They've barely begun a proper courtship even without the mess of the search for the stones or the threat of Mummra.

"And besides I scratched you," Cheetara remembers. "It more than makes us even."

He wants to argue that is really doesn't because her scratches would fade within a few days to be only a memory.

Cheetara pulls on her breeches but she can feel his eyes on her and feel the energy, their want, crackling in the air. It's electric.

Her hands bunching into the bands of her wristlets she looks as though she's fighting to speak but the words must be of some distress and perhaps better left unspoken.

"What's wrong?"

Everything, is the first instinctive thing that nearly rolls off her tongue. There's nothing she wants more than to answer the call of culmination, the physical symptoms have lessened but mentally she's still slipping down the mudhole into the darkness, into temptation.

She needs more.

She feels much better but the want is still there. She's never been so selfish.

"I've made a mess of things."

Tygra's only answer is a quizzical look that asks for elaboration.

"I felt odd days ago and should have known."

"How could you know? You're a little early you know, it's only summer now."

He's correct. Her heats were always very regular, the 31st day of summer and once more the 25th day mid-winter without fail.

Her blood rushes at the idea of Tygra making subconscious note of her…mating cycle, its half in fear. This cat she's known longer than any, that she trusts with her life and heart she's suddenly apprehensive of, this pursuit being a lot more dangerous than the crush of a lanky tiger cub, he's a large powerful cat now that wants her and has waited long to take her.

She knows him a possessive, jealous cat without her heat to complicate things and it would only magnify with nothing to stop it.

And she's ashamed of those emotions too, the want, the need, the desperation, but none more than the fear. Tygra has handled himself far better than she thus far, easily handling those moments where control became a far off impossible idea.

For all of his emotion Tygra was doing extremely well.

For now, her mind counters.

"I'm throwing you," he realizes. "We've never been this close for this long."

Or done so many things to get the blood screaming, he adds mentally.

"Why does it matter? Us this close?"

She's glad he doesn't look at her as though she's a simple cub though she feels that way to ask it. He seems to know more about 'this' than she does.

She has the thought that she's been under-informed, or perhaps just so. She's sure none of these questions had existed for her before the loss of her old life with the clerics, mating was not a large concern for any cleric she knew, in fact she's sure she didn't know of any cleric that opted for a life with a mate and cubs. It had never been of large concern if she's honest.

"You're 'syncing' with me, your cycle is adjusting because there's a huge opportunity for, you know, mating. Cheetah she-cats, like you, do it often."

She can't recall Cara telling her of any such thing. "We do?"

"Well okay, we can only assume you do, but it's a pattern in smaller clans. Has it ever felt like this before?"

Painful and impossible to resist?

"No, not at all like this," she answers.

"You don't have an intended, so you're usually confined for your safety _and_ a smooth easy passing of your heat. Your hormones remain at mid-levels unless something you like comes sniffing along to boost them sky-high. If I weren't here you'd be fine."

He seems to know as much as Cara would on it and it's strange but impressive.

"How do you know all this?"

He shrugs too easily taking a moment to find his effects with a searching paw amongst the grasses, he begins to wrap his whip in a neat bundle before turning his attention to the energy pistol, sliding back a section at the top of the weapon and locking it with a click into place. "My tutors mostly, you get a bit of it usually in your eleventh season, all the gorier details saved till your awakening, in those lucid moments after sparring till you can't walk you're given sort of a mating education. It's a lot like starving to death and having them describe all your favorite foods you can't eat."

Her eyes follow the movement of his hands and she's positive now, there's a violent tremor as he fiddles with his weapons, and a suppressed whispered exhale and inhale of breath trying to rush. She cannot see his eyes over the mask of his eyelids lowered, but she can of sweat turning his orange pelt brown in small streaks down the side of his neck.

It has started already for Tygra and he seeks to hide it, rather poorly she notes.

He knows exactly how hot she'll flush under him when he takes her, he knows exactly what kind of sound she'll make when his teeth lock onto her throat stilling her for penetration, how she'll rock for balance at the force of his thrusts, how she'll bite a warning if he becomes too demanding, hissing when his claws hook into her…

"Tygra?"

"Hmm?"

"Are you alright?"

Tygra nods a bit too stiffly and he won't meet her eyes. "We'll need to get back to camp before his Highness sends a search party, but we should find some things first we've only got a good hour before dark." He hands her her staff he's found near his whip, she takes it setting it at her side.

Cheetara catches his wrist when he stands, his palms rough but the fur across the back of his hands is nearly as soft as goose down.

He looks down at her coolly but she can feel the tremors starting in the tips of his fingers.

"You're shaking," she points out.

She sees that little scar at his wrist that seems a long ago discovery and licks the wound.

His ears sweep backward and he makes a content little half growl.

"Don't worry about it," he assures her, "if we can find some polluck leaves and foxfoot before it gets too dark I'll be set and we'll have my problem taken care of and…I can help you with yours again."

Cheetara fights flushing against his grin and saucy promise.

Darkness wasn't the real issue and she knows it more to do with needing the herbs before the two of them found themselves in a frenzy again.

"Foxfoot?" she asks.

"I may need them," is all he says in answer offering nothing more.

The soil was too dry here and too rocky nearest the river to find foxfoot, it was a delicate plant that grew mostly in marshes and the hope of finding one was slim. She runs through her mental checklist of any herbs or plants that could substitute his suggestion but she can't find any in those mental banks.

Foxfoot root was not a common plant to be used amongst her clerisy but she is familiar regardless thanks to her medicinal training in herbs and roots, she'd probably never have encountered it unless she was visiting Cara's ward. Its use was far more common in the palace and army stables. Often given to the equuis they keep, mounts of Thundera's army, those to be broken and stallions exposed to mares in heat, a leaf or two causing an instant measure of calm and docility bordering on drunk. A measure taken when an equuis grew out of control, in a braying rage.

"You're going to take it?"

He isn't sure how to answer that, from her tone he'd guess she's familiar with its common usage and he certainly doesn't want to divulge her in a long explanation of why he'd opt for such a potent plant, he's sure he'd have to tell her of the occasions in training his rages had frightened all around him.

Yes, he's sure he will need it.

Something dark and familiar is working in him, something powerful and frightening, so quickly only minutes after a taste of her. He doesn't have the best hold of it and keeping the panic at bay is the hard part.

"We should just be prepared."

She'd heard the stories enough to know some measure of violence was a part of mating especially with young healthy strong males, like Tygra, she also knows that aggression if not released would become explosive.

Polluck was used for emergencies of the sort and foxfoot was nearly four times stronger, what measure of rage she wondered did Tygra find himself in to warrant foxfoot?

Foxfoot was not without a price either, it took days for an equuis to recover and the creatures often suffered nausea and disorientation and thirst that was unbearable. She doesn't want to think about the effects on a Cat and she's resigned in not allowing Tygra to take any such measures.

He feels her light touch against his hip before he hears the lilt of her voice.

"No." He stops her before she's managed to form a whole word.

She hasn't even begun her suggestion of assistance, her offering of turnabout. It was only fair and more than that she wanted to relieve him in any way she could. Tygra's attentions had tampered down the worse of her symptoms if only for a little while, her body still hummed with need but it was no longer screaming at least.

She longs to touch him and she knows now she isn't wrong in her unconscious thought that he'd been resistant and almost reticent anytime her hands strayed so careful to focus on her.

It was probably best not to open doors she wasn't invited into but watching every muscle of his coil and slacken and feeling the heat of his fever radiating off him when he's close is not something she is willing to ignore.

He hisses when her hand cups over the throbbing member.

"Stop."

But it's a weak protest and his heart beat bangs against her hand that's caressing the solid wall of muscle and she won't take her eyes from his own that are large and rich brown, but his pupils are small, strangely _unaffected_ by his present arousal.

It's fear in them and anxiety.

"Shh…"

He whimpers before a loud, mean growl begins just as she slithers a hand beneath his pants pressing against the pulsing organ in her hand. She knows he means not his malice unable to respond with anything but aggression when cornered, a reflex like a knock to the knee.

Her palm and fingers feel on fire and he twitches against the heel of her hand and she adjusts her hold again but it's difficult because she can't encompass the girth of him completely and she's feeling a bit like she's facing a wild equuis, the danger being just as great, Tygra could hurt her just as badly as a stallion could in a frenzy of passion.

"Chee-

He doesn't finish because she gets a grip more firmly sliding her hand down and back up him and she feels like the fire has turned liquid trickling across her hands on the upstroke making him extremely slippery.

Her mouth works at the thick expanse of his neck just under the bob of his adam's apple with kittenish licks tasting the salt of sweat because it seems the right way to calm a violent trembling beginning in his belly.

Tygra's mouth opens in an effort to speak that only makes his quiet panting increase in volume and speed when she sweeps her tongue inside the cavern of his open mouth briefly he's simply too overwhelmed to respond to her sinful kiss.

The next sound he makes seems pained, it's a sharp sucking of air between teeth that pulls the tiger's navel tight and she's sure she's cut into his flesh with the light graze of a claw.

"Sorry, are you okay?" she asks.

She manages not to let him go even when she's knocked to her back by his pounce and he feels like a stone pillar crushing the breath from her and his snarl is murderous but he's still pulsing and dripping on her hand, leaking copiously.

She's only aware she is shaking when he slips from her grip and she feels him against her belly like the threat of a broadsword slick and hot as melted paraffin wax on her belly and he snarls thrusting forward with his claws in the flesh of her thighs spreading her.

He grits his teeth, his eyes shut, cock tracing back and forth the seam of her covered entrance, she's lightheaded and her pulse skips finally really getting a look at him. She's terribly aware of why she's never heard of cheetahs mating with tigers.

She was going to be ripped apart, he is far too large not to, even with the upmost care taken.

She curls her fingers into his thick mane at the nape of his neck keeping quiet the whimpers of pain at the raking of his claws that go burning trails along her ribs.

She doesn't worry long because her petting soothes the storm of emotions.

Tygra has just come from some odd dream, at least it feels that way when his senses regain and Cheetara is lying prone under him, arms spread at the height of her head on either side of her face but her claws give away her worry curled and fighting to relax.

She doesn't look like the cleric he knows, her eyes are far too vulnerable, glossy and wide. A cat doesn't need experience in Tygra's opinion to recognize Cheetara's surrender and the perfume of her arousal is tainted with fear.

He's only scratched her shallowly but enough to leave marks of red nearly glowing under the short gloss of her coat.

Tygra swiftly backs away.

"I told you, I told you don't—

"Stop," she hushes finding the side of his face he's torn from her. "you'll hurt yourself, just breathe."

When he dares confront her expression its soft and sweet and full of so much trust he can't stand it. He swears his blood is on fire and he doesn't know when the fever of it will take him again, and when it does if he'll take her, quickly and brutally in his need.

Cheetara understands, recognizes his primitive brain's response to it being a myriad of emotions, anger, frustration, need even as she worked to sate him, his pleasure that is also his pain climbing.

His navel jumps with his shuddering breaths and the hand over his heart trails to that distressed bunch of muscles petting the tense ridges.

It's a gentle gesture meant to assure him slowing his approaching wildness.

"I don't want to hurt you Cheetara," he says and its nearly mute over the rush of her pulse.

But it's a lie, a horrifying lie because he _does_. He wants her bleeding, holed with mate marks.

He thinks to himself he's going to be ill.

"I know, I trust you, I always have," she answers.

She kisses him into hazy compliance and he groans when she snakes her grip around his length again.

Tygra doesn't move to stop her this time striped arms braced at his sides and every muscle the prince has is tight with tension and his look is one of stress and fatigue despite his hot, hard length's interest in mating.

"Isn't that better? Isn't this what you want?"

He's sure his knees are going to give out if she keeps cooing in his ear like that and he grunts and growls only in answer, frustrated at his helpless state.

She wants to keep her eyes on her prince but she's slick again thanks to that overzealous flesh in her hand that both evokes fear and curiosity.

At the cleric's gasp Tygra follows her gaze.

"You're bleeding," Cheetara realizes.

He doesn't understand right away until she sweeps her thumb gently over the head of him so soft in fear of hurting him he shudders and sure enough he leaks a startling amount of pink fluid.

His head bows with his back, he's dizzy again and the pain starts to renew leaving him breathless. "Yeah, guess so," he chokes out.

He's impressed he's even managed that, she's touching him in the most intimate, delicious way possible and he's having trouble ignoring how good she smells. He's sure being run through with a sword wouldn't matter right at that moment either.

"I'm okay," he assures her.

It's a rush of breath and his hips flex pushing him into her grip insistently.

He's asking for more, begging but the last thing she wishes for is to cause him further pain and she's looking at him with that look of concern and horror that he's positive she's too frightened to continue now.

"It happens, overloaded nerves and all," he tries explaining but he's more interested in thrusting forward into her grip again. "Nothing serious I promise."

He's a liar, a selfish liar, he doesn't honestly know he just needs and wants and he doesn't care anything about the blood, it isn't killing him but stopping is.

"But—

She doesn't finish because he groans sharply, his belly giving spasms as though on the verge of heaving.

"Please, you're killing me, don't stop, don't-"

He's a mess and she isn't surprised in the least he's loaded full of her pheromones and the tease of premating activity isn't helping.

He doesn't finish and his brown eyes roll up and closed when she tightens her grip. There's an unmistakable flitting from black to brown of his pupils when he finally looks.

"Slow," she murmurs into his ear laving at the length of it. "Breathe."

It's ironic he thinks having to reassure her in much the same way only yesterday and he wonders if she's aware of how well she'd taken the lesson and made it a turnabout that has him undone and _needing_ to be reminded to breathe.

This time when she kisses him he responds following her lead, her dance into tender comfort.

He has to break from her, finding his lips on her collarbone caging every frustrated growl until it's only muffled noise against her skin.

He worries at her collarbone and she's only stung with the points of his canines a few times.

Tygra groans once quietly, chuffing for a few moments as she purrs in answer and then again a low drawn out sound without restraint and he's surging and covering her hand in his seed.

She brushes her lips to his asking for a kiss and he's more than happy to give one grateful to give her anything, though his effort is lazy. He's suddenly tired and even better feeling like he could sleep if he wanted to, pain gone as quickly as it came.

It will likely not last.

Cheetara looks curiously at her hand, covered in his release unsure exactly what to do with it.

His mouth goes dry watching her.

Tygra recovers quick enough to remember their waterskin. "Come here."

"Wait, wait," she protests.

Her tongue flicks out experimentally once, no more than a droplet on her tongue.

He tastes similar to almond oil and something like salt it isn't exactly unpleasant, it somehow is suiting.

She knows well enough it isn't going to hurt her to ingest it and proceeds to lick her paw clean of him. It gives her a sense of comfort, a bit of peace exactly as grooming usually does, but there's a new element of closeness in taking in that part of him she may be imagining, but she licks until there isn't anything left.

She's tasted him as he has her.

"We should get going back to camp."

His words are shaken and he's swallowing thickly.

Cheetara thinks to remind him of their quest for forgotten herbs, however from Tygra's sleepy little look with muzzy _brown _eyes it's obvious they would not be needing them.

The sky is red with dusk when the cheetah and tiger return to camp wet from a hasty bath in the river.

Kit and Kat seemed to be playing some sort of game with a _"coh-can nut" _fruit, a thick shelled treat the Berbils had introduced them to. It didn't take long for the twins to discover they weren't just good for snacking on they made great weapons for throwing or launching with a big enough sling in a pinch. A sort of edible trajectory.

A trajectory likely to hit one of them before the night is over.

The two were rolling it back and forth across the dirt, the object of the game seeming to be hurling the fruit with enough force to bruise the other twin's knuckles fisted in the dirt across a few yards. The heavy fruit keeps knocking into nunchunks, the weapon's owner who is strangely absent.

A din of crackling firewood, laughing kits and rumble of rolling fruit is hardly enough cover for the two cats to slink back unnoticed.

The wily twins spot them easily.

"Where have you guys been? We're starving Tygra!" Kat moans.

"Sorry, kids we didn't exactly go hunting today," Tygra responds.

The cubs look with huge glossy eyes absolutely appalled.

"Why not?!" Kit whines disbelieving enough to grab the tiger's dropped bag searching futilely for something to eat.

"Because not everything I do has to do with feeding you, you know," Tygra says emphatically.

He's lost Cheetara for a moment, but her scent leads him to her in no time she's tightening the stakes to their tent then smoothing every wrinkle of the canvas, it's a meticulous sort of fussing she can be seen doing when she's feeling antsy.

He can guess why and he's eager to have a bit of privacy with her once more.

"You're just going to let us starve now?" Kit whimpers taking a hold of his leg.

Tygra feels the edge of his patience being pushed and he pinches the bridge of his nose sighing. "Oh for the love of Thundera, didn't you practice those knots for the fishing nets I showed you?"

"Yes."

When Tygra's eyes narrow into slits the two cubs squirm before admitting, "no."

"Not my problem then," Tygra declares watching Cheetara disappear into their tent.

"Then what is your problem?"

Tygra has to turn to find the young king half hidden in the shadows, sharpening the blade of his sword with some crude bit of rock. His red hair looks aflame and when the firelight catches his eyes they shift into brilliant blue jewels of light.

"Excuse me?" the eldest prince says.

"What is your problem?" Lion-O repeats. He replaced the sword into the claw shield standing. "The firewood? The perimeter checks? How about the supply run? Since hunting isn't your problem one of those has to be. The kids have done your job and Cheetara's all day while you two were off doing whatever you wanted."

Tygra scoffs pulling his bag of supplies from Kit and Kat's prying paws neverminding their whining, his want for Cheetara is quickly becoming a need he hasn't the time for any of the others.

"So we took a personal day a little work never killed any cub and definitely wouldn't kill you your Majesty."

"A personal day," Lion-O grumbles. "You think you two can just disappear all day while Panthro, myself, the kits, do all the work?"

The gall of the young king is enough to stop Tygra cold.

"Why not?" Tygra growls rearing to full height all his hackles raised. "You did it all the time, whenever you could for years."

"Things are different now, we were hardly fighting for our lives then-"

At the rise of angry voices Cheetara has come from her tent and the cubs have quieted shrinking back into the shadow the fire preparing for a meltdown between the brothers.

"We were always fighting for our lives!" Tygra roars. "Wake up! You think just because father died you have any idea about responsibility? About leadership?! You think that sword makes you a king?!"

"You think having _her_ makes you unaccountable?!" Lion-O snarls.

A silence falls over the camp as both brothers stare maliciously at each other but it's clear from Lion-O's expression his words were not meant to be uttered.

The victory is too easy and its an intoxication, Lion-O's despair, his want of Tygra's mate.

Tygra's grin is cruel and his words are low and full of venom. "So that's it. That's what this is about. You just can't stand it can you? That she isn't yours like everything else. That I seem to have taken her right from your grasp?"

Cheetara looks on between them alarmed, "Tygra…"

But he doesn't stop and has no plan to.

"Bet you still think about her, still dream about her all the time," the tiger taunts.

Lion-O doesn't move, but his fists ball and he's growling and tensing as though to spring.

It only goads Tygra. "It's painful isn't it? Wanting desperately what you'll never have…"

Lion-O for his credit doesn't blink, "I guess you of all Cats would know." He fingers the hilt of the Sword of Omens meaningfully.

"Keep the sword and keep your orders. She isn't your property and neither am I."

Tygra turns stalking away and the kits scramble to get clear of his path and they don't stop scrambling disappearing into the open hatch of the tank with Snarf right behind.

Cheetara is left alone where the two princes stood because Lion-O is back at the fire prodding the timber irritably.

She comes as close as she dare, afraid of doing any more damage.

"I'm sorry," she offers. "We both are."

He only pokes harder at the burning wood, flinging another log onto the fire, he's ignoring her.

"He didn't mean it, he isn't himself lately, he's just-

"No," Lion-O interrupts bitterly. "He's exactly himself and you're exactly yourself, the two of you, cruel and selfish wrapped in your own little world."

Its unfair, his accusation, he has no idea their weight, their responsibility, to him, to the company, to their journey, how it has stolen even their courtship, their rights to mating, to possibly a family for who knows how long.

"You know that isn't true," she responds quietly.

"What do you care what I think? What I know?" he turns his back fully to her taking up his sword again. "You should go I'm sure Tygra's waiting for you."

She does as he wishes, for the moment Tygra's erratic state is a bit more important than her King's bruised feelings.

"Tygra!"

His ambush so effective she only scents him first then sees his face twists into a snarl.

Her back hits the trunk of a tree with the force of the nudge.

It's clearly what he wants because he purrs thrusting against her, but something is wrong because its only an interruption, he's growling and gripping her with great force.

The haze has seized him, snapped him into a wild aggression.

Wild aggression is accurate because his claws are digging into her hips the same way his teeth nip hard at her shoulder.

The tree bark digging into her spine, she's sure she'll be peltless and red from the friction.

"Wait! Tygra!"

She curses greed and need because when his cock slides squarely across her clit she pushed forward for more trying not to cry out, its delicious even through their layers of clothing.

She can still see the light of the fire from round the thundertank, they are only at the edge of the trees not even hidden in the darkness, within sight range should any of the other cats come around and within earshot if either cry out louder than a whisper.

Cheetara tries to gain her feet but he won't let her, growling and nipping at her jaw in response to her squirming.

The nips are bloodless but she quiets a hiss of pain regardless, it's a rebuff, a displeasure in her lack of cooperation.

They need to do this somewhere safer but Tygra is lost in his lust, his passionate wanting. The only way she could free herself would be with a bit of force, but she has no desire to hurt him, he's hurting enough already if it has gripped him in such a way.

He mumbles something in a guttural growl and she doesn't understand.

"What? Tygra—"

She whimpers mid-sentence because he only answers by nipping her throat again even sharper.

She catches his eyes an orange brown she's seen before in a fit of rage right before they slip into darkness once more, she understands suddenly.

Mine, he'd growled.

"Yours, all yours," she assures him.

With a swept of her eyes across camp she relaxes, letting her eyes fall shut and wrapping her legs tighter round him, relishing the way their bodies meet and her teeth find his neck using his flesh to muffle her noise the same way he is so fond of with her. Her claws go tangling in the back of his mane, the other squeezing his shoulder to urge him on.

She's sure the whole camp can hear their labored breaths and moans she does her best to keep quiet but no one comes and she stops thinking about it when he thrusts hard enough to get her thighs quivering, the electric shock of it radiating from her core.

His claws find the nape of her neck fisting her strands through his claws before turning his mouth on her throat to lick and suckle at her pulse, his breathe tickles and chills her and he's inhaling her scent in lungfuls and his sex nudging against her belly twitches.

Pleasure sparks at the drag of his sex sliding up and down the whole of hers and she's gushing moisture, what's left of her awareness has her in profound awe and disbelief at her level of want and need, the obscenity of their act.

A larger part of her, a darker part doesn't care, doesn't care about anything but getting more of him. She'd be frightened if she could process more than pleasure humming through her at his contact and pain at the lack of.

It's good, it's better than good even but she wants more, needs more and she's starting to pant again and flush, too hot and the pain of her overshot nerves is gradually returning, knifing through her skin. She finds relief in each push and pull of their bodies she needs him and she wriggles as hotly and unabashedly as she can because she can't help it and she's sure she'll go mad if she tries anymore.

Their kiss is broken and she moans nearly keening when the oak of the tree bites harder into her the same way Tygra's member does as she's hoisted up higher trapped tight between the tree and her lover.

She comes with a little whimper and is promptly released.

Tygra stands over her quivering with unspent energy, unspent release.

"Tygra."

He doesn't answer, a rumble beginning in his chest and teeth flashing.

And his scent, she's near dizzy with the pheromones, it swims thick in the air.

"Tygra, come here, let me help you."

He blares out a warning growl slinking off into the woods, leaving Cheetara panting and shaken.

It will only worsen Tygra's sudden snap, she knows as well as she knows how sated she feels physically would not last, pain becoming more aggressive in the same way Tygra has.

She feels her stomach knot at the thought of Tygra's abrupt shift into wildness, she has damned any control he could hope in her selfish want of his tongue.

"Hey."

Panthro frowns at her adjusting the weight of a roe deer kill on his shoulder. "You okay?"

Cheetara nods wondering how long she's been sitting in the dirt and how Panthro has managed to come behind her from the woods without a sound.

Was she that absorbed in her thoughts?

"Of course," she answered hoping it is enough to persuade the cat to let her be.

"Great," he remarks gruffly. "If you and Tygra are hungry you might want to get him now before those cubs eat both your shares."

She gets no berating for her absence. No attitude for her lack of explanation and doesn't make her feel any better its obvious to her at least the General could care less what any of them do and she cannot help but feel their group's divide.

She looks for the prince for nearly an hour before the tang of blood hits her nose and she follows to find a source, as it seems to be in exactly the same direction as Tygra.

A square of flesh covered in brown black pelt barbed on a bush of thorns, the jelly of some beast's insides forming a trail of pink flesh, a massive animal has been torn, torn to pieces.

Her prince is knelt in the dirt, sticky and saturated in blood from head to toe, claws caked with flesh.

Battle won, loser in pieces Tygra still growls in a fury, wild want and need that will not be cheated and would take eventually what was not given...

Tygra's return from the haze is a quiet one, when he spots her there isn't a fuss, a passionate rut nor even much as far as words, she only wraps him in an embrace he allows in his numbness.

Cheetara doesn't need them to know Tygra's horror she can piece together well enough the events of the killing.

He'd sought a hunting venture to calm him and picked up the scent of a bison, so loud in his step, so deaf to anything but blood in his ears screaming he had not noted walking right into a bear foraging a berry patch.

Tygra had fought not for escape, not for defense, but for power, for dominance, for the kill, for want of a mate he could not have.

He had insisted she let him be to scrub away the blood himself and she does as he asks, he doesn't protest when she strips herself to join him at a distance in the river.

She's quiet and withdrawn wringing out her hair, so lost in thought her claws idly combing wet tangles.

Cheetara finds herself suddenly angry because she wants him again and a dead bear becomes completely irrelevant.

"Tygra?"

The question posed is a delicate askance.

"Behind you," he answers flatly.

She isn't sure how to propose such a thing, how he'll respond.

At the small warm hand tugging at his shoulder he turns and there she is, wet and shimmering with the light of the moon, a spotted arm barred across her chest.

She's too beautiful for words.

"Mate with me."

He isn't sure he's heard her correctly.

"Say again?"

She takes two long strides till they are chest to chest, body to body.

"We can't do this anymore, it isn't working," Cheetara says.

"You want to give up? It hasn't been that long."

"That's my point, it's been less than two days and we're only getting worse, slipping out of control."

"You mean I am," Tygra says.

"It's not your fault, Tygra."

He shrugs off her touch. "It is. I could have helped it."

"You can't expect control, neither of us. It's foolish. It isn't something that can be altered, its nature. Unchangeable and cruel to those who do not accept her gifts."

"You call this a gift? Waiting and being afraid of that moment I take you and tear you apart to satisfy myself?"

"I'm not afraid of you Tygra."

"You are," he insists. "You've been afraid from the moment I touched you. I smell it on you and it just grows."

"Of course I'm afraid, so are you, of what's _happening_," she clarifies, "I've trusted you nearly my whole life, it's going to take more than a heat cycle to send me running."

"You don't get it, it came like lightning I was so angry and then the bear was- and I let go and let it take over, I hurt you and slaughtered that animal, I just remember feeling good and worse part is wanting to do it again. And the things I want to do to you I'm forgetting why I shouldn't."

He can smell her scent change, piqued with unease.

"See?"

He expects her to look away but she doesn't even blink, her eyes holding challenge. "You aren't paying attention then." She grips her mass of damp hair pulling it over one shoulder, the move is like pulling away a curtain and he can see her nipples, pink and pert in the moonlight and he's breathless despite his despair.

Those breasts press into him and she uses his shoulders to steady her on tiptoe, her throat displayed fully. He wouldn't miss her scent or the way her pulse rushes.

"What else? What else can you smell?"

He looks trapped and hesitant and before long his nose runs the length of her neck.

She's sweet-smelling under the light sour note of fear, a scent he's completely familiar with, she's heavily aroused.

"What are you waiting for?"

"You could cub, you probably would cub," he reminds her.

"I've decided to leave it in the Great Sky Cat's paws as should you, how have we lost such faith in our fate, our destiny that removed our walls and brought us to each other."

"We've lost everything already Cheetara, I can't I want to but I can't, even if I don't slip too badly I'm going to hurt you, I can't help it, not because I want to, but I need to."

Cheetara nods, swallowing a lump of distress. "I know."

And she does know, trying to prepare herself for it is the worst part.

"I know what you're trying to do but you can't, you can't ask me to use you to take the urge away. And a cub born from your pain, your sacrifice? You couldn't be a cleric anymore, not heavy with a cub, and me…the whole journey could crumble, this whole thing…" He closes his eyes sighing. "Maybe there's a reason we've always had walls, maybe we aren't supposed to fit."

She takes his paws squeezing a powerful reassurance into them. "You're wrong. We are all made in the fires of passion, in the loss of reason as intended by the Great Sky Cat in the perfect timing He makes. We fit perfectly, don't ever tell me we don't, it's cruel."

Cheetara gives up anger or sorrow, kissing Tygra with all the hope she can in one caress of lips.

The apology is obvious in his eyes.

"Come back to camp when you're ready, I'll wait."

She leaves the water carefully to avoid slipping on the bedrock leaving Tygra with only crickets and frogs playing the music of the night.

It's well into the night that Tygra returns, the camp is dark and quiet and it comes as a surprise to see their tent has been moved further up river where the water rushing over the rocks.

Cheetara awakens from a restless doze coming to her feet.

"You moved us," Tygra notes.

"It's a bit more private," is her only explanation.

Not an easy task for just one of them in such a short while and in the dark as well.

He takes a moment to take in the rest of their quarters, she's lined the whole floor with what's left of the spare blankets.

Cheetara is not in her usual clothing, wearing one of her simple tan travel cloaks, this one large sleeved and long, falling to her ankles, cinched by three facets of green buttons, one at the neckline, another just at her ribs and another at her navel.

She seems to be looking for some clue of approval and he doesn't say a word for a few moments more, winding a strand of her hair round his claw.

The wind billows the tent flap and he takes a moment to bend pinning it closed. It was going to be a colder night clearly.

His clan was built for the cold, but Cheetara…

"You're going to catch your death you know."

"You're warm enough," she says.

He supposes its his cue to speak. "Okay."

"Okay?" she says in a stilted kind of way that tells him he's going to have to elaborate.

"Mating, we should." He takes her chin tilting it up planting a kiss on her lip, but she barely responds. "I want to."

It's clearly what she wants to hear because she purrs reclaiming his lips.

Just as she gets used to the slow melding of tongues and lips he nips her cutting the plump skin of her lip with his teeth making a short rasping growl.

It's a shallow cut that stings with the touch of her tongue against it.

His claws freeze on her waist and he gains his breath, his eyes regretful even as they try to darken. "I'm sorry see I'm already hurting you."

"I told you I'm not afraid of you." She's all murmured low tones that curl round his belly.

He wants to tell her it's hardly the point, he doesn't want to take her the way his primal nature tells him he should, not her first time bruised and bleeding.

Or worse.

He's a smart enough cat not to suggest she's fragile, because she isn't in most context, but in this way she may as well be antique china.

Tygra takes a deep breath, readying himself to look at her.

He goes to his knees sitting.

"Come here," he beckons taking both her small paws in his much larger ones.

She does as he asks preparing to sit knees to knees with him before he urges her much closer, she gets his meaning sitting on his lap, he pulls her closer so she's nearly flush against him.

The cheetah's nervous hands are intercepted by the tiger.

"No wait, let me."

But he doesn't go for her the buttons of her cloak, hands finding the bottom edge of it, both hands trailing her from knee to hip.

"Pretty confident weren't you?" he sounds amused but that mischievous glint is absent.

She only leans forward to press her lips to his, he kisses her back slowly working through his reluctance.

"Should I go put my clothes on then?"

He makes a low warm sound that might be a laugh trying to form at her attempt to lighten the mood.

Tygra brings her forward tight against him for a more intimate kiss, she's completely relaxed for the moment and it does wonders to put him at ease as well.

He breaks their kiss with reluctance working reverently at the buttons on her cloak, first one, then the other and finally the last pushing it from her shoulders.

When he checks her expression Cheetara's eyes are hooded with wanting and already he picked up the slight quickening of her heart. Her hair he gathers in his claws carefully pushing over her shoulders as well.

Her nipples already stiff atop beautiful full breasts and her breath quickens more under his stare of them, if possible she looks even smaller and more delicate when her little belly tightens as well with nerves.

Tygra evades her questing hands by easing them to her sides.

"You've seen them before," she points out.

"I haven't," he insists, "not like this."

He presses both thumbs along the stiff little points and she can't help her hands flying to his shoulders and her legs spreading to press better against the strain of his sex.

She can't help rocking her hips a little when he begins pinching and pulling lightly at them.

He takes one little bud suckling lightly as he plucks at and caresses the other till switching with a happy hum. He's surprised to note when her claws tighten in his mane and she started her familiar little gasping moans that give him clue she's climbing close to orgasm.

He releases the swollen nipples from mouth and paws seizes her hips when he begins to pant feeling the first flutters of the haze returning. "Sorry to ruin your fun, just-"

She understands, she can _hear_ it, a low grumble like a whisper vibrating in his chest.

Though it pains her, literally, she nods fighting her own tremors of a cheated pleasure. He needs the control and she would more than allow him a moment for it.

It only takes a moment before he's kissing and licking at her breasts again, his hands adjusting to grab her buttock and he thrust just once hard and slow. She quivers biting her lip against the sting of pain against the wound of his mark and pleasure flooding her. She follows the pace he sets but he has to remind her to slow in a wordless way, claws unsheathing to lightly drag across her rump when she try to quicken it.

Its agony, a good ten minutes that feels like eternity on the edge of a cliff called ecstasy.

And when it pulls her closer and closer she doesn't slow her gradual speed up, uncaring of his berate of claws and he begins purring and just kneading at handfuls of taut muscle, the hum of his pleasure tightening her suckled and pinched breasts.

She comes with a sharp abrupt cry seeing stars.

Cheetara is allowed a bit of time to recover and when her eyes open to the world again Tygra is quivering too.

He hasn't released yet.

Cheetara moves to touch him.

"No," he pants. His eyes flicker brown, black and brown once more. "Turn around for me."

Of course, he was probably eager for the mating and she'd be a liar if she protested she wasn't as well.

She slips from his lap, turning away and once on her hands and knees she arches feeling in her blood she has made herself as optimally enticing this way.

And she is, Tygra is sure he's never seen anything more tempting in his life, she's slick and open, soft and firm muscled thighs and buttocks fully displayed and he nearly takes her then and his pain climbs at his refusal.

She hears the rustle of the prince's clothing, the blue and white uniform being taking off and her heart palpates in anticipation

Cheetara expects his powerful paws to grip her hips and enter her, and for a moment nothing happens and just as she convinces herself to turn his paws do come taking her hips and sitting her in a kneel.

Warm wet licks trail the whole length of her spine and she receives a kiss for each brown back spot discovered, her hair pushed back over the front of her shoulder to give him better access.

She feels almost sleepy at his attentions, he's grooming her, and though its extremely appreciated she's confused. Perhaps it's another measure of calm he needs so she'll take it

"Turn around," he tells her once more.

"But," she protests, unable to quiet her confusion. "Don't you want-?"

Instinct tells her she isn't wrong to wonder why her offer is being ignored, instinct tells her position of lordosis had been absolutely correct, absolutely desirable.

"No, not like that, I want to see you." He turns her round and kisses her full and deep. "Is that okay?"

She answers with another kiss at his question and she's laid to rest on her back. Tygra's panting though again and she waits not knowing whether to she's better helping soothe him by her stillness or action.

Cheetara breathes again when he opens eyes that are fierce but still brown, fighting the haze.

"You have no idea what you do to me," he tells her.

She can guess because she's just noticing how swollen he is and nearly purple with arousal, leaking.

Tygra lays a kiss on her mound, spreading her.

Cheetara resists when its obvious, his goal. "Tygra-"

His cock twitches in interest and its hard to breathe around the lump in her throat watching.

"I need to, please don't say no."

She opens for him and he dives as though starving and she comes at least twice more before he's finished.

Cheetara blood is salty and hot on her togue from agitating the bite on her lip and her eyes snap open feeling his organ nudging against her.

Tygra looks truly dangerous now on the verge, every muscle tight, tight and bulging.

"You trust me?" he asks.

Even his voice sounds different, guttural and low.

She nods. "Yes, always."

It seems to satisfy him but he still hesitates.

She licks the length of his face tenderly. "I love you," she adds.

At this Tygra stares at her wide eyed and then hope, relief and love warms his expression. "I love you, I always have."

Their lips meet in a sweet tangle and she eagerly spreads herself for him.

Her eyes go impossibly wide at the moment he breaches her entrance and she can't help the sudden panic breaking her mouth from his. Her claws drive into the muscles of his shoulders, she's gone rigid making quick shuddered breaths full of pain. She's practically vibrating around him shaking so hard and trying to climb away from under him with her claws using the meat of his shoulders as grips.

He can taste blood in his mouth from where his tongue has met his teeth and she's still driving those claws deeper, his hands go firmly to arresting her hips to stop her escape but allow her claws.

She has a right to her weapons against him.

Flesh for flesh.

He wants pain if she has to endure it as well.

Her eyes have never held such a shimmer, dark and corral and he suspects it's the start of tears she won't spill.

His beautiful, brave and stubborn mate.

He pulls an arrayed strand away from where it's fallen across her brow and planting a kiss on the line of her delicate nose in the same instant her shaking begins to calm, not stopping all together but calming.

She's perfect, an unbelievably perfect fit when her walls ease around him still each instinctive pulse of her is like a coiling, a strangling hold that borders pain, he's sure he won't last, she's too tight.

They haven't even begun either.

Something dark takes him once again when he grabs ahold the side of her sweet unmarred throat where her neck meets shoulder with his teeth and cants his hips in a single brutal second.

She is completely caught off-guard when he thrusts powerfully and fully into her and she's vaguely aware it's only the break of her barrier but it feels like being torn apart from the inside.

As if incensed with vengeance she's rending his shoulders and chest and anywhere else she can and muffling her cries with her teeth around his collarbone.

"Tygra, Tygra…"

His name uttered is a litany against her pain, a plea.

He's never heard her sound so desperate for his help, some salvation to come from him. Salvation he fights to give her.

Because the beast roaring inside loves to hear her mewling in that distressed way, an acknowledgement of his power over her and her submission to it.

Proof of both her strength and frailty.

Her tolerance for pain impressive and sweet Thundera her blood is on his mouth buzzing on his tongue.

Cheetara only gets impossibly black eyes as a response and he's lapping at the neck wound he's made. His teeth dig into her neck once more and he makes a little grunting growl preparing to thrust again if the tightening of his hold into her neck is any indication.

She can't hold in another whimper.

The fog clears at the sound of her.

He's hurting her.

Cheetara is relieved to see those deep browns when he immediately releases her neck.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he tells her over and over.

He'd been nearly crushing her but when he moves to relieve her of his weight one leg goes curling round him, heel pressing into the small of his back.

Her expression is of trepidation but she does the same with the other leg, it's a clear offer.

"Stay."

He groans feeling her little shifts drive him deeper and more easily into her.

He feels himself steeling, bubbling with anxiety, need to unravel, an action that he isn't sure where it will lead to but he's positively it's a road he doesn't want and would probably end with his mate deeply wounded.

"I can't, I can't."

"You can," she whispers, "I'm right here, claim me."

He's quivering with the strain of his stillness inside her and she gives another encouraging thrust against him before turning her mouth to pull softly at a bit of his bicep.

She can literally feel the anxiety ebb from him but not power or wildness, his tongue going flat to trail her neck and face and he slides back all the way inside her with only gentleness that's borderline lazy.

He struggles, she can feel it, he wants more than anything to drive deep and hard, she continues to softly murmur encouragement, petting away tensions, soothing his growls, keeping the beast at the door, never to enter.

It seems to daze and satisfy him, purring fully and thrusting, slow, slow, and deep.

It's perfect because she needs his dazed arousal to relax around him, he still feels sharp and overly large but she's beginning to swim with something incredible as he moves trailing bites and licks along her throat.

She arches, breasts meeting the wall of his chest, pink dusk colored nipples lick hot and sharp where they scrape along him and he bows his head to suckle

He trails the whole length of one thigh in a caress before holding it loosely round his hip, he spots the tiniest little black brown spot just a few inches up her thigh and circles the little mark.

Her hiss is a glass shard at his ear, sharp, and he can feel her curling into herself and clamping around his cock in a strangling hold, she's close.

And so is he.

They pant, coming together in a powerful wave of sensation, sleep finally claiming them only minutes after.

They continue mating this way well into the night and early morning.

_The next morning..._

When Cheetara wakes up its in the warmth of Tygra curled round her possessively, his snoring closer to purring.

She immediately bites down crying out, she feels as though she's been beaten bloody, tender, sore and aching in every bit of her. Its agony to move at all but she manages to get from around the tiger without a sound.

There's blood drying across his shoulders where her claws dug holes into his flesh and a set of teeth marks staining the ivory of his collarbone and another set of deeper bites on his throat, shallower scratches crisscross his chest. He looks a beautiful savage thing completely sated.

She has an urge to wake him that will only grow because she's ready again for mating despite her condition.

She isn't even sure mating again is wise without more time for recovery, her body doesn't seem to care, the thought of pain doing nothing to persuade against it.

She decides on a wash instead, she's a mess.

It's barely light out and there isn't a single movement from the tank in fact its quiet as a grave. She isn't surprised, its much too early for even Panthro to be awake.

With only her travel cloak around her body and all of her clothes spotted with blood or grime it's quite a stroke of luck, she's sure questions would be asked otherwise, awkward questions she doesn't want to answer. Besides that Tygra's scent is all over her, her scent and his mixing in a way that was unmistakable and the blood…

She is slow moving the pain nauseating as she goes past the campsite further downstream where she'll be cloaked well by the thicket of trees, past their bathing area to deeper waters. The water still warm enough for relief to be found for her extremely sore limbs.

It's not at all like the healing pool in the clerisy, she doesn't feel renewed with energy the but familiar pain that throbs for a need to mate asks but does not yet beg. She's more acutely feeling a soreness.

He'd been gentle after the initial wildness, and she finds no blame in him for a bit of roughness, he was only a male with needs to properly claim his female. So he had bitten, clawed, tasted and mated and she too was satisfied.

Very satisfied.

What did it mean now though?

Tygra was her mate. Officially, in the oldest, most primitive way of Cats.

She fingers at the mark on the side of her neck, it would be easy enough to hide with her high collar and hair strategically placed but his teeth had gone deep and purposeful in their placement, missing the cartoid, instinctively avoiding using a killing bite but making a mating one that would heal in time and her short pelt regrow over it but it would scar faintly and sharp cat's eyes would never miss it, it would always be recognized for what it was.

Tygra had been given a similar one, she'd made her own claim on the prince as hers as well.

They belonged to each other fully now but her peace and bliss is clouded with uncertainty.

She wonders if she'd cub and if she wasn't pregnant now, how likely was it that they would need to repeat the mating, or was the insanity of need over now?

A cub with Tygra now in a war torn land was dangerous.

And irresponsible.

Cheetara feels guilt gnaw at her and she's determined to ignore it, mating needs were the fault of no cat, and with the conditions thrown their way she's only relieved Tygra was the one she'd shared it with.

She's so consumed in her washing and her thoughts she misses the gleam of eyes shining from the shadow of an oak near the bank and the shifting of claws in the moist soil.

Cheetara exits the water finding her cloak on the branch of low hanging aspen, right where she'd left it. She knots it with a strip of cloth at the waist and proceeds with washing her clothing as best she can. Its tough going with stubborn blood spots and grass stains but she's rewarded with spotless uniforms eventually.

She wrings and wrings wincing through the aggravation of overworked muscles until the fabric only holds dampness folding them carefully, they'd be hung outside for rest of the morning the sunshine expected for the day she's sure would take care of the rest. The need for sleep, rest from her fatigue beckons her back to the blanket of her mate's body, she misses already the bare press of him against her.

She'd left him bleeding and sleeping soundly and she fills a water skin remembering. She could clean the worse of the blood from him and groom gently away the sting of bites and scratches. She has an overwhelming need to do it she can't ignore.

Cheetara nearly falls backwards colliding solidly with a wall.

Not a wall, a chest.

Her muscle pain flares in her shaky misstep she manages to keep her feet.

"Lion-O," Cheetara greets trying to smile but she's tired, so tired.

She grips her cloak's hood, rumpling the material.

"Cheetara," he says quietly.

He doesn't smile and he sounds…odd, distant even.

"You're up early," he finally notes.

She uncomfortable with the way his blue eyes observe her, noting her appearance, her wet clothes and the cloak that shields her. Something dims his ocean blue eyes till they are nearly cerulean and his slack expression becomes a full frown.

"I am, sleep was difficult."

"I would guess so," and his tone is definitely derisive.

She supposes he still has not forgiven her and she nods, accepting.

"I will see you back at camp," she says.

She mewls loudly in pain, his iron grip on her upper arm.

"How long do you think you're going to play games with me?"

He stares at her through widening pupils, canines bared and he's growling.

"Lion-O, what?"

She's confused but more than that his hold tightens as she pulls away and her heart kicks a warning at the numbness. He's going to break her arm with one powerful squeeze if she doesn't free herself.

Cheetara struggle only seems to anger the lion.

"Don't pretend, you tease, you torment me and I've had just about enough."

"Lion-O let go!"

"You should have been mine!"

Her friend. Her King is hurting her.

She doesn't have a choice when she lands a brutal kick to his chest that should crumple him, the pain is unimaginable with the effort.

He only stumbles and instead of cold blue eyes she gets darkness, the telltale sign of an awakening.

No, it's too early, lions matured much later.

"Lion-O let go!"

It's a horrible irony that Lion-O is what a healer would call a singular, a percent of 2 that did not bend to a tried and true schedule of awakening.

A more likely occurrence of a singular in the constant presence of a male and she-cat courting for mating, their hormones nudging Lion-O's to become active. Another kind of syncing.

Lion-O's lips are rough and demanding against her own.

His teeth chew at her lower lip for entrance and she lashes out with a bite of her own and a scratch that catches his unguarded neck.

Lion-O hisses but releases her and those eyes blink a blue gaze. There's blood dripping down his chin from her bite and red flaring from the scratches across his neck.

He looks about, like coming from a dream and his expression is horror.

His hands shake and he balls them into fists to stop it.

Lion-O goes white as a sheet.

"I'm sorry, I don't know what happened, I didn't mean to—I'd never" Lion-O nearly doubles over, his knees wobbling like a newborn fawn. "What's happening?"

She thinks he may get sick.

He babbles in complete panic and confusion and she doesn't blame him.

"I'm causing it, you're experiencing an awakening."

Its clear from his expression she isn't making sense and she's suddenly angry. It's a mess, thunderanian law, of course he wouldn't know, lions of the royal bloodline were bonded to mates by nineteen seasons, two seasons before their awakening and such a taboo subject is avoided usually beforehand. A female of his own chosen before chaos could occur.

Her king has no intended and his want of her would only magnify, claimed or not, the newly awakened were only blind in their quest. The scent of Tygra still lingers on her skin despite a scrub and his mark still stains her throat, Lion-O had challenged his brother's claim unintentional or not.

There would be consequences.

"You can't be near me, or Tygra," Cheetara says. "It's dangerous." She pauses resigned. "Tell Panthro what's happened, Tygra and I will return in a few days when I've finished."

"You're not making any sense Cheetara—

A sound rattles the trees.

It sounds like thunder rolling, or some great beast bellowing, all rage and fury.

Its Tygra.

His whole pelt standing high in agitation and Lion-O is the focus of an ebony glare.

Her heart sinks to her feet, going cold. And for the first time in many years she's deathly afraid she hasn't had nearly enough time to recover nor the strength presently to separate them.

She'd be useless.

"Lion-O run," she whispers.

He doesn't answer and Tygra's still growling.

The moment she moves forward for Tygra it's as though a thread of hope is severed Lion-O whirls on her snapping teeth at her in warning.

There is not apology in his black eyes.

The action is clearer than words for Cheetara.

She isn't to move.

Tygra snarls in a rage moving forward.

They were going to rip each other apart.


End file.
